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Edited by NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER 




THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 



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THE 



NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 



A MANUAL FOR THE PREPARATION 
OF THE TEACHER 



BY 



JACQUES W. REDWAY 

FELLOW OF THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

LONDON : MACMILLAN AND CO.. Ltd. 
1901 

All rights reserved 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Received 

MAY. 28 1901 

CePYRIGMT ENTRY 

CLASS <l^XXc. Ns. 

COPY a. 



Copyright, 1901, 
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



^<^, 
^ 



NoriuoolJ ?3rM8 

J. S. Cushiug & Co. — Berwick it Smith 

Norwood Mass. U.S.A. 



Tht waste of the old land is the material of the new, — HuTTON. 

That education is best which gives one the power to select his 
environment and adapt himself to it. 

Upheaval has raised the rough block of marble, but erosion has 
carved that block into the graceful statue, — Geikie. 

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. — Tennyson. 



PREFACE 

Within a certain pigeon-hole of my letter file there 
is an interesting collection of letters, including among 
the writers several teachers, a well-known traveller and 
author, an officer of the navy, a college president, and 
a prominent business man. Most of the letters are 
purely of an inquiring turn, but in some of them a 
suggestion of "see here, you" is apparent. The pur- 
port of each is a query about the alleged newness 
which popular usage is connecting with the science of 
geography. 

Now I should like uncommonly well to know some- 
thing definite about it myself, but after a thorough 
research I fail to find that the earth is either more or 
less " round like a ball or an orange " than when, some 
forty odd years ago, I learned to sing the capitals of 
the states to a birch-bark accompaniment. Accord- 
ing to Mr. Milton: 

" . . .a gryphon through the wilderness, 
With winged course o'er hill or moory dale, 
Pursues the Arimaspian, who by stealth 
Had from his wakeful custody purloined 
The guarded gold." 

The gryphons and one-eyed Arimaspians have disap- 
peared — leaving their employment as a legacy to very 
persevering successors — but their loss seems to have 



Vlll . PREFACE 

been offset by certain positive gains, the discoveries 
of one Miss Alice, whose last name has slipped my 
memory ; and, so far as I can learn, the newness in the 
science of geography might very properly begin and 
end with these doings. 

That a different interpretation of the nature and 
scope of geography is growing into the educational 
systems of the United States cannot be denied. But 
however new it may be in this country, both the idea 
and its application have been fundamental in the Ger- 
man educational system for more than two generations. 
Broadly stated, this interpretation, or "newness," is the 
mutual relation of geographic environment to political 
history on the one hand and economic development on 
the other. That this educational aspect of the subject 
should possess anything of novelty about it is not cred- 
itable to the educational institutions that have trained 
the teachers of the country ; yet the very use of the 
term is a self-confession of culpability. 

This book is intended to set forth in an elementary 
manner the relations between human activities and geo- 
graphic environment. It is intended, not for a class- 
room manual, but for the preparation of the teacher in 
the educational side of geography. For matters con- 
cerning class-room devices, the reader must go else- 
where. Methods of presentation come logically after a 
knowledge of the subject has been acquired, and they 
are a highly necessary equipment of the teacher, but 
the discussion of them forms no part of the scope of 
this book. 

J. W. R, 

New York, January i, igoi. 



EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 

There is an unconscious assumption, on the part 
of those who see Httle or nothing to change in the 
subjects of study as ordinarily taught in the elemen- 
tary school, that the usual curriculum is the matured 
result of patient thought and of careful adaptation of 
means to ends. There are no facts to justify any such 
assumption. The usual elementary school course of 
study is the outcome of a very haphazard and unreflect- 
ing evolution in which purely practical, not theoretical, 
considerations have governed. From the time of the 
seven liberal arts to the present day those subjects 
have been most taught which were themselves most 
useful; and usefulness has been broadly interpreted 
by one generation after another. It is significant to 
take notice how conservative the course of study has 
always been, and how ready it is to resist the intrusion 
of a new member. Latin was almost as much dis- 
turbed at the entrance of Greek some four hundred 
years ago, as Greek lately professed to be when the 
modern European languages and the natural sciences 
appeared at the threshold of the schoolroom. An 



X EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 

entrance to the course of study must, then, be forced 
by any new-comer, no matter what are his psychologi- 
cal credentials or how lofty his pretensions. 

In our time this conservatism is perhaps well, al- 
though a generation of children is suffering from inade- 
quate manual training and from most casual and 
imperfect science teaching because of it. But when 
partisanship in various causes runs so high, and when 
the disposition to seize upon the school to exploit 
some favorite panacea is so strong, the sceptical and 
antagonistic attitude toward novelty is the safer one. 
Were it otherwise, the schools would long since have 
been abandoned to Hsms and 'ologies without number. 

This same conservative tendency operates, although 
in lesser degree, to check attempts to recast methods 
of schoolroom procedure and to rearrange and, so to 
say, to reconceive the material of instruction. A rul- 
ing method is a hard and narrow master, and in its 
hands education rapidly becomes pedagoguery. Never- 
theless, the past twenty years have seen the teaching 
of elementary English revolutionized in American 
schools, and a similar revolution in the teaching of his- 
tory and of geography has begun. The accomplished 
author of the present volume has planned it to serve 
as an influential factor in recasting geographical in- 
struction in this country by bringing it abreast of 
contemporary scholarship. 

The conception of geography that is here presented 



EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION xi 

seems to me to be the only one which can support its 
claim to a large share of the time and thought of the 
elementary school — that is the conception of it as a 
subject which relates the sciences of nature and the 
sciences of man. As a bridge over which to pass 
backward and forward from the study of man's habi- 
tat to his activities and his limitations, and back again, 
geography is a unique and indispensable element of 
an elementary education. So treated it is excelled in 
suggestiveness by none of its companion studies. 

It is sometimes held to be a reproach to geography 
that it is a complex and composite subject made up 
of some geology, some astronomy, some physics, some 
mechanics, some history, some economics, and some- 
thing of a dozen more sciences. In my view this very 
compositeness and complexity are its main source of 
strength as an educational instrument. It combines, 
relates, compares, and interprets a great mass of facts 
which bear upon the supremely interesting subject of 
man and his home. It arouses, informs, and stimulates 
the mind in an hundred ways, and justifies itself at 
every turn. But to accomplish this, geography must 
not be wholly identified with physiography, nor must 
political geography and its myriad details unduly op- 
press the student. Man and nature, man in nature, not 
man alone or nature alone, are the true subjects of 
interest and of study in geography. So presented, it 
lays the basis for systematic study of the descriptive 



xil EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 

sciences on the one hand and of man's political and 
economic development on the other. It is a veritable 
unifying force in the subject matter of elementary in- 
struction. 

NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER. 

Columbia University, New York, 
April 15, 1901. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Introductory i 

CHAPTER I 
The Genesis of Geography 7 

CHAPTER II 

The Trade Routes to India and the Discovery of 

THE New World 23 

CHAPTER III 
Physiographic Processes 45 

CHAPTER IV 
The Distribution of Life 63 

CHAPTER V 

The Effects of Topography on Commercial Develop- 
ment 82 

CHAPTER VI 

The Effects of Topography and Climate on the Eco- 
nomic History of the United States . . .101 

CHAPTER VII 

The Emphasis of Essentials .120 

xiii 



xiv CONTENTS 

CHAPTER VIII 

PAGE 

Pictures, Models, and the Globe 139 

CHAPTER IX 
Maps and their Uses 156 

CHAPTER X 
The Course of Study 172 

CHAPTER XI 
Observational and Field Work 180 

CHAPTER XII 
The Teacher's Preparation 206 



THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 



THE 
NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

INTRODUCTORY 

Human passions swaying the hearts of great mul- 
titudes do not always produce far-reaching or even 
lasting results. Without concert of action or unity of 
purpose, the effect is not unlike that of wild birds in 
confinement, beating their wings against the bars that 
restrain them : there is no tangible result beyond the 
hopeless waste of vital power ; they accomplish noth- 
ing. But when those same passions are organized with 
intelligence and concentrated on a single purpose, when 
the lines of energy converge to a common focus, then 
the momentum becomes irresistible. 

The movements of intellectual and social growth we 
are wont to call human progress seldom proceed evenly 
and smoothly ; almost always there are periods of 
quiescence that alternate with those of unrest and 
increasing strain. At last the restraining bonds are 
overcome, and there follows what is insipidly called 
revolution, but which really is an irresistible expan- 
sion. Such movements are very much like the 
downward flow of storm waters. Finding their prog- 



2 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

ress checked, their kinetic energy, little by little, is 
transformed into potential energy : there is friction ; 
there is tension ; the restraining barriers are burst ; 
and the dormant forces so long held in check become 
the energy of motion and intense action. 

So, too, the great stream of humanity has ever 
moved. The intellectual development for a time may 
be apparently restrained ; for a time the pent-up 
energy of a people may seem dormant, but it is sleep- 
ing in appearance only. All the time it is growing in 
volume and increasing in intensity, until finally the 
bonds are burst and it expands to normal limits. The 
bolts and bars of prisons cannot hold it back; castle 
walls crumble and disappear before its mystical influ- 
ence; armored battleships cannot resist its momentum ; 
it enters impregnable fortresses and undermines the 
foundations of the king's palace. And the result is 
ever the same — expansion. The human mind grows; 
it expands by fits and starts, perhaps — but it expands. 

History is full of the great movements of humanity 
that have followed outbursts of intellectual develop- 
ment — indeed it is these same movements that con- 
stitute history. And no matter what may seem to be 
the intermediate cause, the real motive may be traced 
always to the same incentive — geographic environ- 
ment. The story of physical life, including inci- 
dentally that of mankind, is circumscribed, and is 
contained within the story of the earth. The external 



INTRODUCTORY 3 

habiliments of life are products of the earth, and when 
life departs they return again to the earth. At that 
mysterious gift of the Creator we may marvel, but we 
cannot fathom it, nor can we solve it. Only during 
the brief time in which it is chained to the earth can we 
know anything of it, and even then we can see only the 
external form that it controls. Physical life is satis- 
fied or dissatisfied accordingly as its support is harmoni- 
ously or discordantly yielded. Change the conditions 
of its environment, and the external counterpart changes 
in obedience, adapting itself within certain limits to 
the new surroundings. Cut off the nutrition altogether, 
and the animate form disappears from the scene, to re- 
appear, perhaps, elsewhere in new or changed form. 

In human history, as in that of the lower forms, 
the problems of life and its conditions are merciless. 
Conquest, migration, the lust for power, and the acqui- 
sition of wealth, all have the same motive as an incen- 
tive — namely, hunger. Nationalism and government 
both point to the same objective — mutual protection 
and the equitable distribution of food-stuffs. But the 
food-stuffs come from the earth, and sooner or later, 
therefore, about all the activities, both of the individ- 
ual and of the nation as well, revert to questions of 
geographic environment. Practically, about every 
great movement of peoples has resulted from a 
disturbance of environment. The immediate and 
apparent cause may be conquest : it may be flimsily 



4 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

veiled in the name of religion, or it may be a com- 
mercial av/akening ; but it is always a disturbance of 
geographic surroundings. In the spreading out of 
Greek peoples in times past, and of EngHsh peoples 
to-day, we may see striking illustrations. There came 
first the discovery that they were outgrowing their 
circumscribing boundaries ; then individual energies 
gradually accumulated, until they became a general 
impulse ; finally, by virtue of migration, or by the 
conquest of new lands, new conditions of environment 
obtained. In the adjustment of a people to their new 
or their changed conditions, a great deal of friction 
develops, and the friction thus becoming manifest 
constitutes an important phase of history. 

The great historic movements that have resulted 
from disturbance of environment are many in number; 
but at least two of them stand out in bold relief as 
epochs in the development of civilization, and mile- 
stones in the path of human progress. The Siege of 
Troy set in motion a chain of events that not only 
brought about the intellectual development of Aryan 
peoples, but in the end also carried Aryan civiliza- 
tion clear around the world. Perhaps the exciting 
cause may belong to the Age of the Myth, but the 
effects are none the less real and tangible. The Hel- 
lenization of Europe is a story of unnumbered strug- 
gles, almost always emphasized by blood, it is true ; but 
it is also a story of intellectual expansion, and of the 



INTRODUCTORY 5 

growth of education and liberty. Mr. Gladstone's 
assertion that modern civilization begins with the 
"Iliad" is something more than a visionary fancy; it 
is an established truth. 

When the Turks blockaded the trade routes between 
Europe and Cathay, there resulted another great move- 
ment that constitutes an epoch of progress wonderfully 
prolific in events. The discovery of a new world and 
the regeneration of the old are outgrowths of this 
apparently trivial movement. The decay of monarchi- 
cal government and the rise of democracy are its off- 
spring. It caused the demolition of the feudal castle, 
and upon the dismantled walls of the latter were set the 
corner-stones of modern commerce. The electric motor, 
the telegraph, the telephone, the railway, the steam en- 
gine, and all the equipments of domestic and mechanical 
science are its children. Modern geography in its 
broadest sense has resulted ; and the world which five 
centuries ago was laid open to the search-light of dis- 
covery, is now receiving the final touches of adjustment. 

That the period which has elapsed since the opening 
up of the new world began has been one in which war 
and revolution have been the rule rather than the ex- 
ception, must be granted. Given that it has been an 
epoch, too, in which might has been the fundamental 
law of right, it has also been one in which the conquer- 
ors have carried with them the arts of peace and the 
fruits of civilization. The substitution of machinery 



6 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

for the labor of the hand gave to the laborer his first 
chance for betterment. The mind which controls the 
machine is on a plane distinctly higher than that which 
controls merely the labor of the hand. Commerce, no 
matter what the aim, has always worked toward the 
betterment of mankind. It moves along lines of least 
resistance — and these are always geographic — and 
it has invariably encouraged education and science. 
To a greater extent than any other factor, it has been 
the vehicle by which Christianity and enlightenment 
have been spread broadcast over the earth. 

War has its horrors, but it is less horrible than igno- 
rance. War is a great civilizer. The tremendous en- 
ergy developed in its progress is not checked either 
by victory or by defeat. Energy may be transformed, 
but it cannot be annihilated. Like the subtle elec- 
tricity which seemingly disappears only to reappear in 
the form of heat, light, magnetism, or motion, so the 
energy of action or of passion aroused by war is trans- 
formed into the energy of intellectual growth and 
education. Moreover, in a contest between civiliza- 
tion and savagery, the latter has no inherent rights, 
save existence under such conditions as will ultimately 
lead to civilization. The world each year is growing 
smaller and smaller, when measured by the growing 
standards of human energy, and the adjustment, which 
in the nineteenth century may have appeared a passing 
fancy, in the twentieth becomes an absolute necessity. 



CHAPTER I 

The Genesis of Geography 

Tradition relates that more than three thousand 
years ago Cadmus carried an alphabet from Phoenicia 
to Greece. Just what literal interpretation may be put 
upon the tradition cannot with certainty be stated. 
Using proper methods of analysis, however, it seems 
fairly certain that in very early times a number of 
conventional signs to represent vocal sounds found a 
resting-place among Hellenic peoples. It seems cer- 
tain, too, that the alphabet evolved from pictographs 
or from hieroglyphs. Possibly it may have originated 
among the Phoenicians, but there is strong evidence 
that Egypt and not Phoenicia was its birthplace. 

In its new home, however, great effects were to 
follow so soon as the process of transplanting should 
be accompHshed. At that time the Greek tribes were 
scarcely a remove from barbarism in their social con- 
ditions, but they were ripe for an intellectual develop- 
ment that should be unsurpassed in history. The newly 
acquired mechanism of expression became a tremendous 
engine of power, and the intellectual development that 
was born of it marked the beginning of a new era of 
human thought. The deeds of valor that made the 

7 



8 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

heroic age, as a rule, appealed to the better nature of 
mankind ; and when, finally, they were recorded in 
literature, they were to become as immortal as the soul 
of man. The fall of Troy added fresh fuel and inten- 
sified the energy of intellectual growth, and when, at 
last, that energy had been transformed and had crystal- 
lized, there was a new civilization in the world. 

As far back as seven hundred years before the Chris- 
tian era, Hellenic influences were paramount along the 
European and Asian shores of the Mediterranean. 
With the multitude of ports and trading posts wedged 
in among non-Hellenic and often hostile people, Greece 
had become practically a country without borders. At 
Saguntum and elsewhere along the Spanish Peninsula, 
in southern Italy, at the mouth of the Rhone, and all 
along the yEgean Sea the Greek merchant was the 
dominant force. And whether we find him at Mar- 
seilles or at Trebizond, at Sinope or at Corsica, along 
the watershed of the Don or under the shadows of the 
Caucasus, he is always Hellenic. The man will usually 
rise superior to his environment; therefore, in study- 
ing those causes that have exercised such a vast influ- 
ence upon the world, one must look to the man and 
his social and political institutions — his language, 
religion, and philosophy; for it is in these only that 
one finds organization and unity. The Greece of 
geography is 'EXXa? aTropaScKri — a scattered rather 
than a concentrated people. 



THE GENESIS OF GEOGRAPHY 9 

Granted that the real Ufe of the Greek may have 
been one from which the student turns in disgust, the 
ideal life, on the other hand, presents a high standard 
that is a heritage for all time. Any system of ethics 
and literature that lifts a people from a lower to a 
higher plane of civilization is bound to be good. Hero- 
worship is a corner-stone of patriotism as well as of 
individual character, and the heroic age of the Greeks 
is a treasure-house of the best examples. It would 
have been wisdom had both Greeks and Latins kept 
them always in sight. 

The peculiar development of the Greeks was due 
partly to their conditions of geographic environment 
and partly to their religion. The rugged surface of 
their country — less than one-third is even now pro- 
ductive — did not favor concentration of energy or unity 
of government. Each range or ridge, on the contrary, 
was a barrier to intercommunication, and served to 
isolate rather than to draw the various peoples toward 
federation. The sea was the only great highway, and 
following the line of least resistance,^ the various 
peoples were scattered rather than united. There was 
a Greek nation only when all Hellas met at the cele- 
bration of the Olympian games, or when any descend- 
ant of Hellas sought the common shrine at Delphos. 

^ Horace terms the sea as dissociabilh ; Homer calls it v'ipo. K^Xeuda, 
the highway of nations. But Horace lived among people who were not 
sailors, while Homer sprang from a race of born sailors. 



lO THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

To the tendency of dispersion there came about the 
rise and growth of another great power on the shores 
of the Mediterranean. Legendary history tells us that 
when Hekuba, queen of Troy, was heavy with child, 
she dreamed that she brought forth a flaming torch. 
Little wot she that the torch should kindle such a 
tremendous conflagration ; for when Paris awarded the 
Apple of Discord to Aphrodite, in an instant his own 
destiny and that of the world was decided. The rape 
of Helene, the Siege of Troy, the fall of the beleaguered 
city, and the flight of .^neas follow in succession, as 
the wily machinations of the gods had planned. 
JEriQas, storm-beaten in body as well as in mind, 
finds refuge in Italy, where he and his followers amal- 
gamate with the people of Latium. So the legendary 
stories read ; and sifting the facts from the imaginary 
and poetic, it is probable that a shipload of Greek out- 
laws settled in that part of Italy where their past history 
and pedigree would not likely be a subject of minute 
inquiry. Intermarrying with a people also of Aryan 
descent, possibly, like the Gauls, of Keltic origin, but 
certainly more remote, there grew up at Alba Longa 
a municipality of sturdy pastoral people. In the course 
of time it became necessary to establish an outpost near 
the mouth of the Tiber, The outpost itself grew 
into a municipality, and it is not hard to imagine 
it a crowd so motley that one might liken it to a 
Sunday concourse at Coney Island. Ramnians, Vol- 



THE GENESIS OF GEOGRAPHY II 

scians, Umbrians, Sabines, Etrurians, and Graeco- 
Latins — about everything that a drag-net could gather 
from the slums of all Italy — gathered there. The 
Graeco-Latins were the saving clause — the redeeming 
feature. They gave to the new municipality two very 
necessary things — organization and religion. The 
organization was constitutional government ; the reli- 
gion, obedience to duty. 

The municipality soon became a kingdom, and so 
remained for a little more than two centuries. A 
wave of popular reform spreading along the Mediter- 
ranean, however, resulted in the expulsion of the 
tyrants from Greece and the kings from Italy. From 
this moment the real history of Rome begins. The 
growth and development of the republic was the 
marvel of the times. A normal territorial expansion 
brought the peninsula of Italy under Roman domain, 
and a series of foreign wars gave the republic con- 
trol of the entire shores of the Mediterranean — "the 
great circle of the lands." 

That the commerce of the sea and its basin should 
gradually centre about the Italian coast — mainly at 
the city of Rome — was wholly in accordance with 
geographic laws. The abundance of food-producing 
land and the great extent of cattle range not only 
invited a dense population, but supported the people 
as well. The dense population, together with the 
enormous domestic trade, produced an effect that 



12 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

could not have occurred under any but the most en- 
lightened monarchical form of government — namely, 
the development of an intricate system of constitu- 
tional law. Hekuba's firebrand was burning well, but 
the conflagration was confined only to the great circle 
of the lands. When the confines of the Roman 
republic had reached the foot of the Alps, there 
was an end to the first act of the movement that 
was to create a new civilization. 

The republic had reached a period in its history when 
expansion to the northward had become a necessity. 
That it had not enlarged its domains in this direction 
before was due mainly to geographic causes. Expan- 
sion is apt to follow lines of least resistance, and the 
transalpine Gauls, therefore, were for a long time secure 
in their stronghold ; so, too, were the Germanic peoples 
who held the northwestern part of Europe. Of all the 
peoples of Europe, the latter were the fiercest and most 
warlike. Angle, Saxon, Jute, Dane, Norse, and German 
we call them — they were emerging from barbarism 
to one of the lower planes of civilization, but their 
descendants are the dominating race of the world to-day. 
Along the coast they were pirates and sea-robbers ; 
within the maritime border they were herders who much 
preferred to raid upon the flocks and herds of one 
another, rather than to care for their own property. 
In population they outnumbered the Romans and the 
rest of Southern Europe. There were some great 



THE GENESIS OF GEOGRAPHY I3 

centres of population, and probably a number of large 
cities, if one can so designate great collections of 
mud hovels. They were not wholly without litera- 
ture, but the fragments that survive show that lust, 
gluttony, murder, and robbery were among the gentlest 
of their characteristics. 

It was against these people that the Roman arms 
were turned, and it is only a matter of justice to them to 
say that, although defeated, they were never conquered. 
The conquest of Germanic Europe was much hke the 
coiling of a spring ; while the retaining force is present 
there is no action, but once let the retaining force be 
removed, the energy becomes the energy of motion. 
Four hundred years of Roman occupation produced an 
effect, however. The invaded people were apt scholars, 
and they learned not only the science of war, but also 
the arts of peace from their invaders. And the fierce, 
barbarous tribes were the aptest of scholars, too, for they 
surpassed their teachers, leaving the latter far in the 
rear. By the process of education Greek ethics and art, 
together with Roman constitutional law, became the 
legacy of Germanic Europe. Of far greater importance, 
however, was the christianization of all Europe. The 
practice of self -conduct, based upon the attribute of love 
in its broadest sense, was a fit supplement with which to 
round out the education derived from the Greeks and 
the Romans. It was the fortuitous combination of the 
moral, the intellectual, and the ethical — the good, the 



14 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

true, and the beautiful — the elements that go to make 
up character. Aryan civilization, moving with not a 
little friction, had accomplished two great results : it 
had developed a great geographic empire in the south 
of Europe, and it had Latinized all Germanic Europe. 
When the Western Roman Empire fell to pieces, there 
was no crash and no catastrophic results — nothing but 
the bursting of shackles that were preventing geo- 
graphic expansion. For the next thousand years Western 
Europe was adjusting itself to its new environment. 

Let us turn for a moment to the Gr^co-Roman ideas 
of the world's geography. Li the time of the Siege of 
Troy, about all that was known of the earth's surface to 
the Greeks consisted of the shores of the Greek Pen- 
insula and Asia Minor — the coast of the ^gean Sea. 
Homer, it is true, speaks of Egypt, but by this term he 
means only the Nile delta. The wanderings of Ulysses, 
as related in the " Odyssey," reveal practically nothing, 
even under the very liberal interpretation that the voy- 
ages and adventures were real. Although the Egyp- 
tians were skilled in astronomy, they have given us very 
little information of their ideas of geography and, indeed, 
they seemed to have heeded but little beyond the Nile. 
Moreover, the Egypt of earher history refers almost 
wholly to the flood-plain and the delta of that river. In 
the canals connecting the Red and Mediterranean seas, 
we get a glimpse of Egyptian trade, and it is highly 
probable that a considerable part of Eastern Africa was 



THE GENESIS OF GEOGRAPHY I 5 

known to the Egyptians. The Phoenicians certainly 
were acquainted with a large part of this grand division, 
but there is now no record of what they knew about it. 
To the Greek merchants and sailors the world was even 
smaller. Beyond the immediate coast of the eastern 
Mediterranean and its islands, but little was known ; the 
lands stretched away in the distance until they reached 
the shores of the river Oceanus. 

In the time of Herodotus, however, the field of knowl- 
edge had grown considerably, and the geographic horizon 
was much more clearly defined. Not only was Herod- 
otus a historian, but he also deserves a place, and a 
high one at that, among geographers. For twenty years 
he was a most perseverant traveller, and it is very evident 
that he travelled with his eyes wide open. His travels 
covered the distance from western Italy to Susa, the capi- 
tal of the Persian Empire, and from the mouth of the 
Dnieper far into Africa. Although not wholly free from 
error, Herodotus is about the first writer of his times to 
separate the mythical from the real. He is among the 
first to recognize the existence of the three great masses 
of land that constitute the Eastern continent, and his 
statements concerning their size, shape, and relative posi- 
tion are not more erroneous than were the ideas of the 
American continent one hundred years after its discovery. 

Eratosthenes rarely receives the credit that is due 
him as a geographer, yet he deserves an eminent place. 
He was not a traveller, but he assiduously collected 



l6 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

and edited the knowledge gained by others. Ii^ view 
of the unbelief in the theory of the earth's splierical 
shape for more than a thousand years after the "Chris- 
tian era, it seems singular to learn that this theory was 
accepted by Greek scholars nearly three hundr^^^y-edrs 
before Christ. Eratosthenes not only calciila^d the 
circumference of the earth, fixing it at 25,200 geo- 
graphical miles, but he also observed the inclination 
of the earth's axis, giving it the very close value 
of 23° 51'. 

Probably the greatest work ever undertaken in early 
times was that of Strabo, who in seventeen volumes 
gives a general geography of each country of the earth 
as it was known at the end of the Augustan age. 
Making a liberal use of the mathematical works of 
Eratosthenes, Hipparchus, and Posidonius, — the last 
the probable discoverer of the moon's effect on the 
tides, — Strabo was the first to compile a scholarly 
treatise on the fundamental laws of geography. He was 
the first to emphasize the planetary features of climate, 
and he elaborated the idea, probably first advanced 
by Hipparchus, that the earth's surface is naturally 
divided into five zones. Incidentally it may be men- 
tioned, that not until nearly two thousand years after 
Strabo's time did it occur to geographers that the 
zones of light were one thing and the zones of heat 
quite another. 

Like Herodotus, Strabo was a great traveller, and 



THE GENESIS OF GEOGRAPHY 1/ 

like him, too, he possessed keen powers of observation. 
His chorography is certainly the best up to the time 
in which he Hved. Africa excepted, his outlines of the 
Eastern continent are fairly good, though he evidently 
clings to the old Greek idea that the land is twice as 
long as it is broad. His ideas of Western Europe were 
clear, and he censured Eratosthenes for believing in the 
existence of Thule,^ holding Ireland to be the most 
northerly part of Britain. 

The conquest of Alexander the Great had opened 
the way between Europe and Asia, and in the course 
of time a steady stream of commerce began to flow 
between the Orient and the Occident. The breaking 
up of the Western Roman Empire was somewhat of a 
check upon it, but during the Crusades it had grown 
to vast proportions, centring mainly at Genoa and 
Venice. Heavily laden caravels from the Adriatic, 
carrying their cargoes of woollen and linen cloths, 

1 The land called Thule was brought to public notice by Pytheas of 
Massilia (about 275 B.C.), who affirmed it to be six days north of Britain, 
and in a latitude in which the June days were twenty-four hours long. 
In this region he stated that there was no distinction between earth, air, 
and sea, but that everything was in the form of a gelatinous substance. 
This substance he claimed to have seen, but the rest he derived from hear- 
say. In the time of Agricola Roman sailors had sailed around Britain 
and touched at the Orkney Islands, claiming to have seen Thule to the 
northward — doubtless the Shetland Islands. There is no means of iden- 
tifying the Thule of Pytheas. It may have been either Iceland or Green- 
land, and the " gelatinous substance " may have been sludge ice — all of 
which is a matter of speculation. Eratosthenes may have been right, but 
Strabo certainly was wrong, 
c 



1 8 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

glass ware, metal goods, and wine, fetched silk, cotton, 
cashmere, ivory, perfumes, spices, and gems brought 
from India, Arabia, and Africa. Genoese merchants, 
following different routes, brought their merchandise 
up the Euphrates from the Persian Gulf, a route that 
in former times had made Palmyra a great trade mart. 
Another route lay up the Indus, across to the Amu 
Darya, or Oxus, thence across the Caspian and along 
the Black Sea to Constantinople. Even as far back as 
the third century, China — under the name of Serica, or 
of Thin^ — had become known because of its silks, and 
there was vague knowledge of Zipango, or Japan, and 
Taprobane, or Ceylon. There was no direct communi- 
cation between Europe and China, however ; all the 
silk stuffs so highly prized by the wealthy Europeans 
passed through many hands. 

That the growth and development of this com^merce 
should steadily increase, in spite of wars and the heavy 
restrictions placed on trade, at first seems strange, until 
one recollects that, after the breaking up of the Roman 
Empire, it was much easier for a sovereign to obtain 
wealth by pillaging his own subjects rather than to 
depend upon the very uncertain profits in plundering 
a foreign people. In a way, the despised merchant, 
especially if he were a Jew, became a necessary evil — 

^ Seres or Serica was the name given by the silk merchants ; Thin, Tsin, 
or Sin» by historical writers, probably from the Chin dynasty, then the 
ruling power. 



THE GENESIS OF GEOGRAPHY 1 9 

a something to be protected until his accumulations 
were worth filching. So, for nearly a thousand years 
from the breaking up of the Western Roman Empire, 
a moderate degree of prosperity fell to the lot of the 
European merchant. In time he turned against his 
oppressors, and in time the feudal castle fell before 
the well-delivered blows of the factory hand. Learn- 
ing and culture increased throughout Central Europe, 
and with it there came the stimulus of curiosity — the 
desire of knowledge concerning the Indies and China. 
But almost in a twinkHng this vast trade and the 
elaborate mechanism by which it was carried on re- 
ceived a crushing stroke. Hekuba's conflagration was 
only smothered, however ; it was again to burn more 
fiercely than ever. The wet blanket that for a time 
covered the glowing pile was the invasion of the Turks. 
Inspired with that zeal that has ever made the teach- 
ings of Islam a religion of the fire and the sword, a 
horde of Turks poured forth from the deserts of Asia, 
and overwhelming Asia Minor, drove the Christians, 
and likewise European trade, out of Syria. The treach- 
erous machinations that grew out of the mutual jeal- 
ousies of Genoa and Venice made an open door into the 
Balkan Peninsula, and resulted in the fall of Constan- 
tinople (1453). The trade of all Europe was at the 
mercy of a people whose very shadow blighted every- 
thing on which it fell. Commerce was at a standstill. 
Turkish corsairs swept the Mediterranean ; swift- 



20 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

mounted rough riders guarded every route and swooped 
down on every luckless caravan. 

What threatened also to become an equal catastrophe, 
occurred early in the thirteenth century, when Jenghis 
Khan overran the whole northern part of Asia and 
extended his domain almost to the Baltic Sea. But 
Jenghis proved to be a delightfully jolly-hearted bar- 
barian ; moreover, he was possessed of a woman's 
curiosity, and both he and his followers wanted to learn 
about everything worth knowing. So all the barriers 
were removed, and the former policy of seclusion gave 
way to one of wide-openness. Neither before nor 
since has China, or Cathay,^ as it was then called, been 
so accessible. Then followed a century or more of the 
development of geographic knowledge. What the Cru- 
sades had done in enlightening Europe about itself, the 
invasion of Jenghis accompHshed with reference to Asia. 
The resulting knowledge made all Europe rub its eyes 
with astonishment. Remote regions traditionally peopled 
with dragons, gryphons, dog-headed folk, and one-eyed 
Arimaspians gradually evolved into very respectable 
countries of decently behaved people,^ having boun- 
daries that were terrestrial rather than lunary. Late 

1 Probably from Ki thai, a formerly reigning Mongal dynasty. 

2 Many of the descriptions of the more remote countries are marvels 
of imagination, and the school which they represent was rounded up by 
one Sir John Mandeville, whose "Travels," even to the present day, 
are a most delightful piece of imaginative fancy. The real Sir John was 
a Burgundian leech, who, in his younger days, had probably journeyed 



THE GENESIS OF GEOGRAPHY 21 

in the thirteenth century the brothers Maffeo and 
Nicolo Polo, together with Marco, Nicolo's son, made 
a trading journey that covered about all of China and 
India. Even before the account written by Marco Polo 
had been published, John Plan del Carpini had carried a 
message from Pope Innocent IV. to the Grand Khan, 
at Karakorum, and following in the steps of Marco 
Polo, Friar Odoric reached as far eastward as Sumatra 
and Java. Indeed, so great was the travel, that Fran- 
cesco Pegolotti,^ a Florentine trader, wrote a " Baed- 
eker" for the use of European travellers to Cathay. 

in the capacity of notary to some ecclesiastic to the Holy Land. As a 
resourceful liar he is without equal in the annals of literature, and he 
evidently wrote with the idea that human gullibility has no bounds. 
Everything landed by his net was fish, and so the story of the weeping 
crocodile, the legend of the grains from which grew the wood of the 
Cross, the story of the phoenix, and the account of Prester John were all 
pressed into service. The first three chapters of his " Travels " are au- 
thentic and reasonably true. The remaining portions are cribbed from 
about everything he could get hold of. The writings and accounts of 
Friar Odoric, John Plan del Carpini, Hayton, William of Boldensele, and 
Pliny, are pretty well gutted to furnish material. The only thing to es- 
cape his notice was Marco Polo's travels, and just why he did not absorb 
this source of information is difficult to say. Sir John's bumptious per- 
sonality and the modest way in which he unloads his most rousing whids, 
make the " Travels " most delightful reading. For a more extended 
account of the book the reader is referred to Mr. Yule's sketch in the 
Encyclopaedia Britannica, and to the author's edition of the "Travels" 
published by D. Appleton & Co. in the series of The World's Great 
Books. 

1 Mr. John Fiske, in his " Discovery of America," notes a very important 
word of advice which Pegolotti imparts to the uninitiated, i., p. 291 : "And 
don't forget that if you treat the custom officers with respect, and make them 



22 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

There was one item of information brought back by- 
travellers — first noted by Friar Odoric — that in a 
little time set all Europe a-thinking : they not only 
asserted that Cathay had on its eastern border an 
ocean, but several of them had coasted that ocean, so 
that it was known from Japan to the Red Sea. Thus, 
for the first time, there was positive knowledge that 
Asia had a definite eastern boundary, and that that 
boundary was an ocean. This, as Mr. John Fiske 
aptly remarks, became " a notable landmark in the dis- 
covery of America." The ocean was east of Asia, it 
was west of Europe ; therefore, one might sail west- 
ward from Europe and reach India and Cathay. The 
idea was one of those concentrated thoughts that 
gathers strength as it goes. Hekuba's fires were 
again glowing. 

something of a present in goods or money, they will behave with great 
civility and always be ready to appraise your wares below their real value." 



CHAPTER II 

The Trade Routes to India and the Discovery 
OF THE New World 

With the only available routes to the Orient hermeti- 
cally sealed, it is not strange that the thoughts of com- 
mercial Europe should be centred on finding some 
means of intercommunication that the Turks could 
not reach. That either Venice or Genoa should make 
any great effort was out of the question. Not only 
were their resources exhausted because of their fighting 
each other, but their sailors, for the greater part, were 
ignorant of the navigation of any routes but the old 
ones ; they were fine men for Mediterranean voyages, 
but not for deep-water sailing. Moreover, while the 
ships of each State preyed upon those of the other, 
Turkish corsairs looted and scuttled both. 

That the Portuguese and Spanish should come to 
the front at this time was of necessity to be expected ; 
it was a sort of natural selection. The English, like- 
wise, were waking up and were ready to take advan- 
tage of whatever opportunity might present itself. The 
Portuguese, for the very best reasons, planned their 
lines of search to the south and east, along the African 
coast. For many years they had had troubles of their 

23 



24 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

own, and the chief source of them was the Moorish 
pirates. The vessels of the latter were swift, and they 
were manned by probably the most skilful cutthroats 
that ever sailed the high sea. They were ubiquitous 
and omnipresent. As a result, the whole power of the 
Portuguese government was turned against them, and 
strong fleets patrolled the northwestern coast of Africa, 
convoying the returning merchantmen to ports of 
safety. 

When the Western Roman Empire was at the height 
of its glory, there was a brisk trade along the west 
coast of Africa, but for a long time after the collapse 
of the empire it had been neglected, and even the 
knowledge of the coast, to a considerable extent, passed 
out of existence. Early in the fifteenth century, how- 
ever, Prince Henry of Portugal, better known as the 
Navigator, who had learned something of the interior 
of Africa, received a grant from the papal throne 
authorizing him to acquire all lands in Africa beyond 
the territory of the Moors and Saracens. The lands in 
question were to accrue to Portugal. Possibly Prince 
Henry was aware that his profits were not wholly 
speculative. Being something of a business man as 
well as a sailor, he had already definite information of 
many of the coasts and islands once known to the 
Romans, but forgotten for many years afterward. Be- 
sides, he had perfected the mariner's compass, the use 
of which was just beginning to be known. The dis- 



THE TRADE ROUTES TO INDIA 2$ 

covery of the Azores, a hundred years before, had 
doubtless set him thinking, while the fact that Portu- 
guese sailors had also reached Madeira and Cape 
Bojador must have been an additional stimulus. Prince 
Henry's thoughts certainly were worth banking on, 
for, in a very short time, not only had he rediscovered 
the coast details as far south as the latitude of Madeira, 
but he had rediscovered and colonized that island itself. 
Then he attacked the problem of Cape Bojador in a 
very practical way : he found it and sailed a hundred 
miles beyond it. Thus was another bugbear demol- 
ished, for the superstitious sailors believed to a man 
that no vessel could be built which would withstand the 
waves that lashed this storm-beaten cape. The next 
vessel sent out a few years later not only rounded Cape 
Bojador, but reached the mouth of the Rio del Oro, 
incidentally bringing back a rich cargo of gold and 
slaves. 

In 1463 death snatched Prince Henry, but it did not 
put a stop to his work. He had already trained a 
large class of master mariners, and the work of explora- 
tion went on under royal direction. There was but 
one more bugbear of superstition to be downed ; 
namely, the belief that the burning heat of the Torrid 
Zone would consume every living thing that entered 
it. But in 147 1 Santarem and Escobar sailed along 
the Gold Coast and crossed the equator, while three 
years later Cam entered the mouth of the Kongo, and 



26 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

then, surpassing his former voyage, cast anchor in 
Walvisch Bay. In the meantime an enormous trade 
grew up along the coast, which certainly did not de- 
crease the king's exchequer. It was an era of pros- 
perity to Portugal, and inasmuch as the proverbial 
bird was in the hand, his neighbor in the bush was 
half neglected. 

Then, unheralded, there came about one of those 
seemingly trivial incidents that was bound to be far- 
reaching in its effects. The incident in question has 
knocked about in history, but it remained for Mr. 
John Fiske to give it the proper interpretation. Just 
after the discovery of the Kongo, a negro king of 
the Gold Coast sent an envoy to the king of Portu- 
gal asking that missionaries might be sent to the 
royal state of the former. To just what purpose the 
missionaries were to be put does not matter. The 
envoy, however, brought a story that nearly paralyzed 
King John with joy and excitement. It was, in effect, 
that a long way to the eastward of the domains of his 
royal master there dwelt in great splendor a powerful 
sovereign whose emblem was a bronze cross. Whether 
or not there was a private understanding between the 
ship's captain, party of the first part, and the envoy, 
party of the second part, involving a transfer of back- 
sheesh from the former to the latter, does not con- 
cern history. Contagion never took more effectually 
than did this story. In it King John saw a vision of 



THE TRADE ROUTES TO INDIA 2/ 

Prester John ^ and a safe route to India all rolled 
into one great effect, and he fairly fell over himself 
to take advantage of it. He immediately fitted out 
an expedition, under the command of Bartholomew 
Dias, to find a way to the Atlantic coast of Africa; 
at the same time Pedro de Covilham ^ was despatched 
by way of the Red Sea and Egypt. Covilham finally 
turned up in Abyssinia, where he spent the rest of 
his life. Dias, after a stormy voyage, rounded the 
south coast of Africa, and sighted land probably in 
Mosel Bay, not far from the present city of Port Eliza- 
beth. He wished to push still farther north, but his 
sailors rebelled, and so he turned back, discovering 
the Cape of Good Hope on his return. 

The log-book showed a run of more than thirteen 
thousand miles — by far the most remarkable made 
before that time, unless we accept that of Leif Eric- 

1 Prester John was a mythical Christian potentate, who, in the middle 
of the twelfth century, was alleged to have broken the power of Islam in 
Western Asia, building there a great empire that extended into Africa. 
According to vulgar belief, he was leading an invincible army toward 
Jerusalem in order to annihilate the Mussulmans and reestablish the Holy 
City. About the time that gossip began to wane, there appeared a letter 
from the artful presbyter addressed to Comnenus, Emperor of Constanti- 
nople. It was a fine piece of description, and served its purpose well. 
The spreading of Nestorian belief lies probably at the foundation of the 
myth, and the letter was a whole-cloth fabrication of a Nestorian monk. 
Marco Polo identifies Unk, a Tartar Khan who also bore a Christian title, 
as the original Prester John. 

2 Probably an English sailor, Peter Cobbleham, who, like Gil Eannes 
(Giles Jones), had entered the service of Prince Henry. — Fiske. 



28 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

son. His only means of finding his place at sea was 
a crude form of astrolabe which he went ashore to 
use. When finally he turned his vessels eastward, 
he could not have suspected that he was beyond the 
southern point of Africa, for he had been out of 
sight of land for many days. The voyage of Dias 
practically settled the question of an all-water route 
to India. If there was any doubt in the mind of 
King John, a message from Covilham, in Abyssinia, 
seemed to settle the question. "The ships," he said, 
"that sail down the coast of Guinea ought to be 
sure of reaching the termination of the continent by 
persevering in a course to the south." The voyage 
also put an end to a growing belief, formerly advanced 
by Claudius Ptolemy and Hipparchus, that the conti- 
nental land reached around the world,i enclosing the 
Indian Ocean. In a way, too, it brought back the 
old Homeric notion of an ocean that surrounded 
the land.2 

In founding his school of navigation, therefore, 
Prince Henry builded well. 

The illness and death of King John delayed further 

1 Herodotus was told that a squadron of Phoenician ships, entering the 
Red Sea, sailed around the coast of Africa, and finally reached home by 
way of the Mediterranean. He expresses his disbelief of the story, but 
the statement that they had the sun on the northward in rounding the Cape 
is an earmark of truth that cannot be lightly set aside. 

^ t6v Se 'ilKeavbv \6y({} fiiv \4yov(ri dir rjXLov avaroXiuv 
ap^dfievov yijv irepl wacrav ^^eiv, epyv de oiiK dirodeiKvOffi. 



THE TRADE ROUTES TO INDIA 29 

search for the royal presbyter for some years, but in 
1497 Vasco da Gama doubled the Cape, crossed the 
Indian Ocean, and reached the city of Calicut, on the 
west coast of Hindustan. Not only did he bring back 
a cargo of very great value, but he also established a 
purchasing agency there. 

Long before the actual discovery of the all-water 
route to India, however, there grew into the minds of 
those most interested a vague suspicion that such a 
route as the one around Africa would scarcely fill the 
needs of the times : it was both too long and too danger- 
ous. There was a vague belief, too, that land could be 
found by sailing westward. Pieces of strangely carved 
wood had been picked up at sea, or had drifted to Euro- 
pean shores ; the bodies of two men of unknown race 
had washed ashore on the island of Flores ; and pine 
trees and bamboo stalks had also been driven by the 
prevailing westerlies to the islands and the mainland. 
Moreover, the legends of St. Brandan's Island and of 
Antilia, in common with similar myths, seemed to have 
a nucleus of truth. 

Among the trained seamen that had gathered at the 
school of Prince Henry were two brothers, Christopher 
and Bartholomew Columbus. The latter was with Dias 
in his voyage around the Cape. The former had had 
a wider experience : he had sailed the Mediterranean 
and knew it by heart ; he had spent some time on the 
Gold Coast, and he had visited England, Iceland, and 



30 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

the Faroe Islands. Between times he studied astron- 
omy, made sailing charts, and wrote books. Of the lat- 
ter, unfortunately, there are no copies extant, but one, 
"The Five Habitable Zones," was intended to refute 
the many ridiculous notions about the all-burning Tor- 
rid and the ever frozen Frigid Zone. It has been con- 
jectured by some, and declared by other writers, that 
Columbus must have learned something about Vinland 
and the voyages of Leif Ericson and Thorfinn while 
at Iceland. There has never been found the first scrap 
of evidence to support such a claim, however. Other- 
wise, "Why," as Mr. Fiske asks, "did he sedulously 
refrain from using the only convincing argument at his 
command, namely, that a continent had actually been 
found in the direction which he indicated ? " 

Among the scholars of the time whose thoughts 
seemed to have influenced Columbus was the famous 
astronomer Toscanelli. Toscanelli was something of a 
chorographer as well, and had completed a map that 
contained about all that was known of the world's out- 
lines. The original map is unfortunately lost, but it is 
easily reproduced from the globe of Martin Behaim. 
The information gathered by the Polos had just begun 
to be appreciated, and Toscanelli had made a most lib- 
eral use of it. As a result, there was no little discus- 
sion among the scholars of the time about a westward 
route to India and Cathay. To the Spanish, a west- 
ward passage was simply a necessity for the reason 



THE TRADE ROUTES TO INDIA 31 

that, by the decree of the Pope, about everything east 
of the meridian of Ferro worth discovering had been 
granted to the Portuguese. Therefore the Spanish 
must look for hope toward the west. There was also 
another important question, Was the western passage 
shorter than that by way of the Cape .-' This question, 
from the best data that could be obtained, was an- 
swered in the affirmative. Columbus went about his 
determinations in this way : the circumference of the 
earth, according to Ptolemy, was 20,400 nautical miles 
(the 25,200 miles of Eratosthenes was then thought to 
be too great), but by measuring along the parallel of 
the Canaries the distance was only 18,000 miles. Tak- 
ing the statement from the Fourth Book of Esdras 
that six parts of the earth are inhabited and only the 
seventh covered with water, he reasoned logically that 
the route to Zipangu would cover scarcely 2500 miles. 

One might smile nowadays at the simple faith of the 
man, but it must be remembered that the period was 
not exactly propitious for " the higher criticism of Scrip- 
ture " ; and, moreover, Columbus was a man of deep 
religious nature.-' This idea was not new, nor did 
Columbus originate it ; it was held by Roger Bacon 
two hundred years before and received the tacit sanc- 
tion of the Church, 

^This aspect of the man is an answer sufficient to meet the railings of 
Signer Lombroso, who has spent unnecessary time and ink to show that 
Columbus was morally degenerate. 



32 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

The plan had been uppermost in Columbus's mind 
for ten years before he broached it to King John of 
Portugal, just after returning from the Guinea coast. 
King John submitted the plans to two societies or com- 
mittees, each of which pronounced against the scheme 
as impractical and visionary. Then as an afterthought 
he was persuaded into playing a very indecent trick. 
He fitted out a ship secretly to follow the sailing route 
charted by Columbus, but the crew of the vessel got a 
severe attack of fright before they were scarcely out of 
sight of the Cape Verde Islands, and skulked back to 
Lisbon. On learning of this piece of rascality, Colum- 
bus shook the dust of Portugal from his feet and 
departed for Spain. After many discouraging delays, 
he won the friendship and confidence of Juan Perez, 
Prior of La Rabida monastery, who enlisted the royal 
treasurers Quintanilla of Castile and Santangel of 
Aragon. It is sometimes alleged that the Church 
secretly opposed Columbus, but no untruer statement 
was ever made ; Juan Perez, Quintanilla, Santangel, 
Mendoza, and the saintly Las Casas, all priests, were 
his warmest friends and supporters. At the time when 
the plan was nigh falling through for want of money, 
however, Queen Isabella came to the rescue and 
pledged her credit for a considerable part needed. For 
himself, Columbus demanded the office of admiral in 
perpetuity over all lands discovered and a royalty of 
one-tenth of the net profits of the enterprise, with a 



THE TRADE ROUTES TO INDIA 3 3 

further royalty of one-eighth of the profits of succeeding 
enterprises. At the signing of the contract Columbus 
made a vow to devote his share of the profits to the 
restoration of the Holy Sepulchre. 

The preparations for the voyage were immediately 
begun. A caracca and two caravals were pressed into 
service, the first commanded by Juan de La Cosa, the 
caravals by the brothers Pinzon. Half an hour before 
sunrise August 3, 1492, the squadron weighed anchor at 
Palos and stood for the Canaries, stopping there long 
enough to repair the rudder of the Pinta, probably 
broken by the design of her timid owners who were 
sailors aboard the ship. Fortunately the voyage was 
undertaken during the season when the sea is usually 
free from hard weather; the course laid out was due 
west from the Canaries, which, according to Toscanelli's 
map, would take them on the arc of the 28th parallel to 
the northern part of Zipangu, and thence to Zaiton, or 
Chang Chow. From the very first Columbus under- 
stated the daily distance, keeping two reckonings, in 
order to allay any fears on the part of his crew, — he had 
declared the total distance to be run at not more than 
twenty-five hundred miles, — and he was prudent enough 
not to excite unnecessary fears. Even with all pre- 
cautions the crew were frequently on the verge of 
mutiny ; they could not understand the shifting of the 
compass needle as its variation changed, nor could they 
understand the sluggish movement of the ships as they 



34 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

almost forced their way through the Sargasso Sea. 
After the squadron had spanned twenty-five hun- 
dred miles and over, or about twenty-two hundred ac- 
cording to the doctored log, Columbus began to fear that 
he had rounded the northern point of Zipangu, and so 
he shifted his course a couple of points to the south. 
This was October 4 ; by the nth the signs of land be- 
gan to be so clear that the feeling of mutiny gave way 
to one of excitement. That evening a light was seen 
on the shore, and at two on the morning of the 12th — 
the 2ist according to the present calendar — land was 
sighted,^ and the vessels hove to. Satisfied that he 
had reached the islands outlying Cathay,^ Columbus 
spent but a few days in the Bahamas ; he set sail for 
Zipangu — and landed on the north side of Cuba ! He 

^ The island, one of the Bahama group, at which the first landfall was 
made, is not with certainty known ; but Samana or Atwood Cay corre- 
sponds most nearly to the course followed after leaving the island, and its 
general form corresponds to the description in the log, namely, an east-and- 
west lying island. Columbus says that the native name was Guanahani, 
but he renamed it San Salvador. The map drawn by Juan de La Cosa, 
the master of the caracca Santa Maria, affords no identification of the 
island, and that of Herrera is equally faulty. Among the maps in the 
British Museum is one antedating the Herrera map by about thirty or 
forty years, on which the names Samana and Guanahani are both applied 
to the same island. For a comprehensive discussion of the subject the 
reader is referred to the author's "First Landfall of Columbus," Nat. Geog. 
Mag., 1894, vol. vi, p. 179 et seq. 

2 Marco Polo had described the coast as studded with small islands. 
Columbus found " fragrance," but no spices ; nor was it the last time that 
he got the shadow for the substance. 



THE TRADE ROUTES TO INDIA 35 

coasted about the island, finding not spices but tobacco. 
While Columbus was coasting about Cuba, the elder 
Pinzon deserted him, possibly with the idea of being 
the first to communicate the tidings. Columbus made 
no effort to find him, however, but contented himself 
with exploring the coast of Cuba and of Haiti. 

With Christmas, however, there came another un- 
pleasant mishap. The Santa Maria grounded near 
the site of Port de Paix and quickly went to pieces. 
The accident was too serious to be helped : there was 
nothing to do but to return to Spain. Leaving a 
part of his crew on the south coast of Haiti, he 
embarked with the remainder for Spain, overtaking 
the Pinta with the faithless Pinzon along the north 
coast of the island. After much severe weather and 
great hardships, the Pinta and Nina reached Palos. 
Columbus was summoned to Barcelona to receive the 
honors he so richly deserved. The few gold trinkets 
and pearls he brought back were scarcely an equiva- 
lent to the cost of the expedition, but they promised 
well for the future. Of more interest were the half 
dozen Caribs ; and since the country they came from 
was India, what more natural than to call them Indians. 

Columbus made three additional voyages. On the 
third he touched South America at the mouth of the 
Orinoco, and on the fourth, the coast of Central Amer- 
ica. Then the shadows began to gather. The visions 
of wealth that Ferdinand had sought, failed to mate- 



36 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

rialize, and so he listened to the venomous tales of 
Fonseca. Columbus was deprived of his office, chained, 
and cast into a dungeon. The beautiful character of 
Isabella then shone out brighter than all the splendor 
of Aragon and Castile. She not only interceded for 
Columbus, but she took upon her own shoulders the 
responsibility for the blame. Then the light went out 
of her life, and the career of Columbus was finished. 
He died forsaken and in poverty, and the shackles he 
wore in the streets of Cadiz were buried with him. 
And to this day no one knows his final resting-place. 
So ended the search for the Indies by the westward 
passage : ^ the completion of the discovery of America 
is quite another matter. 

Although America and Europe were brouc,ht in 
touch by the discoveries of Columbus, there doubtless 
had been various visits to the continent, and it is 
probable that Chinese traders had explored its Pacific 
coast five hundred years before the attempt at coloni- 
zation was made by the Norse, It is very unlikely 
that any one in Southern Europe could have known 
anything of the latter ; that Columbus knew nothing 
of it is shown by the route he followed. 

Late in the ninth century, five hundred years 
before the voyage of Columbus, there occurred a 
political revolution in Norway that resulted in the 

1 Cabral, a Portuguese sailor, en route to India, was carried westward 
to Brazil in 1500. 



THE TRADE ROUTES TO INDIA 3/ 

federation of the kingdom and the uprooting of a 
sort of feudalism which had come into existence. 
Many of the independent feudal lords, chafing under 
the new system, refused to brook restraint and left 
the peninsula. It was another case of the concentra- 
tion of energy that arises from unity of thought. 
The lords, or Jarls, left by dozens and scores. They 
settled in Scotland, in Ireland, in France, and even 
in Constantinople. They established colonies alon;;- 
the Baltic, in the Orkneys, the Shetlands, the Faroes, 
and in Iceland, In 876 one Gunnbjorn reached Green- 
land, spending the winter there ; and in 983 Erik the 
Red, who had been setting a rather too rapid pace 
in one of the islands, found it convenient to get away 
from the arm of the law ; so with a number of com- 
panions set out for Greenland. After exploring both 
coasts pretty thoroughly, they found a level, grass- 
covered mesa at the head of Igaliko Fjord. As soon 
as Erik felt certain that he would not be molested 
he returned, and, visiting Iceland, induced many 
families to cast their lot in the new settlement. 
Eventually two colonies, or series of settlements, were 
formed, one near Godthaab, the other near Julianes- 
haab ; the one was named Westbygd, the other East- 
bygd. The two colonies prospered for a while and 
did not finally disappear until four hundred years 
later. Some of the old buildings, their stone-built 
walls chinked with clay, are yet standing. 



38 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

In 986 Bjarn (plain Barnes), a son of one of the 
men who went with Erik, in returning from Iceland 
to Greenland, lost his reckoning, and getting into 
the fog finally hove to on a shore bordered by a low 
coast plain. So, perceiving that he was badly out of 
place, he turned northeast, and, in time, got safely 
home. Three years later, while in Norway, he told 
his story to Leif, the son of Erik the Red. The 
story had a magical effect. The inherited instincts 
of the father came to the surface; throwing aside his 
robes — he had been a clergyman — he lost no time 
in getting into a sailor's pea-jacket, and in the fall of 
1000, with thirty-five men, put to sea. They landed 
somewhere along the Labrador coast — Helluland, they 
called it — and then turning southward reached a 
wooded coast which they called Markland. Thence 
they continued southward to an open bay or land- 
locked sea, where they landed near by and spent the 
winter. They found an abundance of wild (fox) 
grapes, and therefore they named the place Vinland. 
There has been much speculation concerning the 
location of Vinland, but it is hardly possible the 
place will ever be determined. As Mr. John Fiske 
suggests, it was between Point Judith and Cape 
Breton. 

Leif returned to Greenland next spring. His two 
brothers each made a voyage to Vinland, using 
Leif's ship, but going at different times. One was 



THE TRADE ROUTES TO INDIA 39 

killed by Indians ; the other died on the voyage. In 
1006 a wealthy Icelander of noble birth became inter- 
ested in the accounts of the Ericsons. This knight, 
Thorfinn, married the widow of one of Leif's broth- 
ers, and immediately set out for Vinland with four 
ships, where his son was born. For three years they 
remained there, cutting timber and getting furs. 
Then the natives became so hostile that the surviv- 
ors abandoned the settlement and returned to Green- 
land. In loio there was another attempt to found a 
colony at Vinland, but the colonists quarrelled and 
murdered one another, until but four or five were 
left. And when they returned and the story got 
out, the survivors were so completely shunned that 
all knowledge of Vinland died with them. So 
ended the attempt that at first seemed so full of 
promise. 

It is only fair to say that the whole story of the 
Greenland and Vinland settlements has been denied. 
So far as Greenland is concerned, documentary evi- 
dence is abundant, and the evidence is of the most 
conclusive sort : one might as well deny the Revolu- 
tionary War. Even as late as the beginning of the fif- 
teenth century there is a record of a marriage in the 
old Kakortok church, whose walls are yet standing. 
The two colonies numbered about six thousand souls. 
Regarding Vinland, evidence is confined wholly to 
Icelandic and Norse literature. There is not a scrap 



40 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

of corroborative evidence in the shape of relics ^ and 
ruins. If, however, the internal evidence contained 
in the Sagas was trumped up, then one must admit 
that the writers had a miraculous power to describe 
actually existing things which they could have neither 
seen nor heard about. 

But the Norse expeditions and settlements, the dis- 
coveries of Columbus, the voyages of the Cabots, the 
fulsome work of Vespucci, who may or may not have 
given a name to the continent, the mishap that drove 
Cabral to the coast of Brazil, and the sickening results 
of the post-Columbian expeditions — all these were in- 
cidents in the discovery of America. Each formed a 
part of the work, but the discovery was not completed 
for a century afterward. 

For twenty years or more after Columbus's first 
voyage no one seemed to realize just what had been 
discovered. The voyages of the Cabots in 1497 and 
1498, and the discovery of the northeast coast of 
North America, had so little significance that Henry 
VII considered ten pounds a fair equivalent. It was 
merely a bit of Chinese coast, as they thought. The 

1 Mr. John Fiske is troubled because none of the early French or Eng- 
lish explorers " ever set eyes upon wild cattle or pigs or hounds." If he 
knew as much of the Indian and his fondness for meat, from personal 
contact, as does the writer, this bugbear would quickly vanish ; moreover, 
there could scarcely have been more than one hundred people in Vinland 
at any time, and the few animals they may have abandoned were quickly 
slaughtered. 



THE TRADE ROUTES TO INDIA 4 1 

long list of voyages along the Brazilian coast were 
equally unimportant. By 1502 the South American 
coast had been explored as far as South Georgian Island, 
but even then it was not suspected that the Atlantic 
and the Pacific came together near by. A voyage by 
the Portuguese navigators D'Abreu and Serrano to the 
Molucca Islands in 15 11, and another by Andrade to 
China by way of the East%vard Passage, again began 
to set Europe thinking. Here was China, and the real 
thing, too, on the east ; and here also was a broad ocean 
in the place of what the map of Toscanelli showed to 
be Asian territory. But what was still more important, 
in 1 5 13 Balboa had actually crossed the newly dis- 
covered land and had found a vast ocean on its western 
border. So, little by little, it dawned upon those who 
were most interested that the new coasts were not a 
part of Asia, but a great continent between Europe 
and Asia. 

The Moluccas had been reached by the eastern 
route ; was it possible to reach them by the western 
route .'' — this was a question that occupied the thoughts 
of Magellan. But King Emanuel, who had a monopoly 
of the eastern route as a bird in the hand, was content 
to let well enough alone. If only the barrier of the 
Americas could be circumnavigated, what a chance for 
Spain, whose newly acquired possessions so far seemed 
to be a gold brick ! The chance was seized, and Spain, 
September 20, 15 19, put five ships at the command 



42 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

of Magellan, From the Canaries they went down the 
African coast to Sierra Leone, thence to the Brazilian 
coast, near Pernambuco, and thence southward along 
the coast to Patagonia, to the strait that now bears 
Magellan's name. Before entering the Strait three of 
his captains mutinied ; but trivial things of that kind 
did not disturb Magellan : he knifed one to the heart, 
beheaded a second, and put the third on a barren shore 
to muse on the inconvenience of being an instant too 
slow with his machete. One ship was sent back to 
Spain with her captain in irons. There was no more 
mutiny. 

Having sailed through the Strait, October, 1520, there 
was a long stretch before they should again sight land 
— five thousand miles of hunger, starvation, misery, and 
death. To read Pigafetta's journal is sufficient to 
turn the heart of the most stoical. March 6 they 
reached the Ladrones and, for the first time, were 
able to supply themselves with decent food and good 
water. Ten days later the vessels, three in number, 
reached the Philippines, where Magellan himself was 
killed by the natives. Of the 280 men who had left 
Spain, 115 were left. One of the vessels was found 
unseaworthy and therefore was burned. In December 
the vessels reached their destination, the Moluccas. 
Here one vessel, much in need of repairs, was put out 
of commission for the time being ; the other, the Vic- 
toria, set sail for the Cape of Good Hope, and rounding 



THE TRADE ROUTES TO INDIA 43 

the Cape finally reached the port from which she sailed, 
September 6/ 1522. 

The voyage of Magellan is certainly the greatest 
feat ever recorded in the annals of history. In com- 
parison, the voyage of Columbus was much like an 
October trip to Old Point Comfort. There was but 
one thing further to accomplish, and that was done 
in part by Sir Francis Drake, who surveyed the 
greater part of the west coast of America, 1 577-1 580, 
and by Vitus Bering, who found the strait, now bear- 
ing his name, that separates Asia from America. 
For a long time, too, there was a search for a north- 
east and also a northwest passage that should lead 
through the Arctic Ocean from Europe to Asia ; but 
although the passage was found the results were 
futile. 

In a way, the results both of the new route to 
India around the Cape and the discovery of America 
were disappointing. Venice and Genoa lost all their 
remaining trade — punishment they richly deserved. 
Portugal failed to hold any considerable part of the 
India trade, and Spain got none at all. In the course 
of two centuries, they acquired possession of the 
greater part of America. Both nations followed the 
plan of killing the goose that laid the golden egg, 
and, as a result, lost their possessions and gained 
each a war debt. 

1 It was really September 7 ; they had lost a day by sailing westward. 



44 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

The commerce with India, as well as a tremendous 
home trade, was gradually transferred to the shores 
of the north and the Baltic Sea. The decline of the 
Hanseatic League, the greatest business combination 
ever known, was followed by the development of 
commerce on broader and better lines. The growth 
of manufacture demanded an educated people, and 
before such a power the barbaric structure of feudal- 
ism could not long stand. So when the smoke of 
battle had cleared away, the factory took shape upon 
the foundations of the castle, and the hum of machin- 
ery supplanted the clang of steel against armor. 

The most apparent result of the blocking of the 
trade routes, therefore, was the industrial and commer- 
cial revolution that regenerated all Europe. More- 
over, it was an adjustment along geographic lines, 
and the progress of history is permanent only when 
it advances along such lines. The greatest problem 
of physical life is the adaptation of the individual to 
the conditions of its environment, and the nation must 
govern itself by the observance of similar laws. 



CHAPTER III 

Physiographic Processes 

Properly interpreted, a summary of the preceding 
chapters points out the fact that this great period of 
discovery, with its grewsome stories of peril, hard- 
ship, and disaster, all resulted because the Turks had 
blockaded the available routes of commercial inter- 
course. Man is a gregarious animal and in a high 
state of civilization must obtain the necessities of 
life, not from his immediate environment, but often 
from localities far remote from his dwelling-place. 
Thus England must look very largely to India for 
cotton and wheat, to Australia for gold and wool, to 
New Zealand and Canada for meat, and to the United 
States for cotton, wheat, and meat. Now the stop- 
page of the arteries of travel and commerce between 
Europe and India not only disturbed the whole mech- 
anism of commerce, but in a way it indirectly cut 
off nutrition very much in the same way that the 
shutting down of any great manufacturing enterprise 
throws its thousands of employees out of work, and 
prevents them from earning their daily bread. In 
other words, because all nutrition comes from the 
earth, the earth and man must be studied as coun- 

45 



46 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

terparts. The man cultivates the earth, and in turn 
the earth yields its nutrition to the man. The vast 
and complicated machinery by which the necessities 
of civilized life are distributed, constitute commerce, 
and for the protection of both commerce and the 
man there is the organization called government. 
The two poles of energy, however, are the man and 
the earth, and here is the first fundamental principle 
of political economy : the man is the consumer, the 
earth the producer. 

The man is adapted to certain conditions of envi- 
ronment, and beyond these he cannot exist. Change 
the conditions within the limits, and he may adapt 
himself to them ; change them so that the limits are 
exceeded by a hair's breadth, and sooner or later he 
disappears. So, when we consider the problem of 
the earth and life, we must look at the latter as a 
sort of contingent on the physical condition of the 
former. Let us for a moment look at the conditions 
by which life is environed. 

So far as human knowledge can determine, the 
earth consists of a rock envelope or lithosphere sur- 
rounding a highly heated central mass. Without the 
rock envelope there is a water envelope which covers 
four-fifths of its surface and penetrates much of the 
uncovered part. Without the water envelope there 
is an aerial envelope, having a thickness estimated to 
be between fifty and one hundred and fifty miles. 



PHYSIOGRAPHIC PROCESSES 47 

which surrounds both the water and the rock enve- 
lope. These three envelopes, moreover, are con- 
stantly in movement and are always reacting upon 
one another. Under the influence of solar heat, the 
atmosphere is surging with tides and currents of its 
own, all its parts being thereby commingled. The 
water envelope, the sea, is also in constant motion, 
by means of which the warmer and the colder parts 
are mixed by the complex action of waves, tides, and 
currents. Under the action, too, of secular heat and 
other causes every part of the rock envelope is under- 
going disturbance, rising here and sinking there. 

In addition to the individual movements of each 
part of the earth, there is a very complex mutual re- 
action, the effects of which are far-reaching. Under 
the action of heat a part of the water envelope is 
vaporized, mingling with the air and, for the time 
being, forming a part of it. Sooner or later, however, 
chilled from one cause or another, the water vapor 
is condensed and falls in the form of rain or snow. 
That which falls on the land wears off and removes 
the more exposed surface, and as the water flows 
downward it degrades the uplifts and fills the sunken 
and hollowed places with the sediment, or material 
worn away, in time carrying the latter to sea level 
and distributing it along the margin of the land. 

Of the physical condition of the central mass of 
the earth but little can be inferred, and practically 



48 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

nothing is known. Notwithstanding its intense heat, 
one cannot safely assume that it is in a liquid form ; 
indeed, whatever evidence exists, goes to show that 
such an assumption is out of the question. In the 
first place, the enormous pressure of the enclosing 
rock envelope is sufficient to prevent liquefaction ; 
in the second place, in its relation to the sun and 
the other planets, it behaves like a fairly rigid body. 
The rock envelope itself appears to be about as 
elastic as glass, while the whole mass of the globe 
seems to be somewhat plastic, yielding about as freely 
as would a globe of mild steel having the same dimen- 
sions and shape. 

Careful measurements have shown that the earth 
as a whole is about five or six times as heavy as an 
equal bulk of water. The rock envelope itself, how- 
ever, has but little more than half as much density ; 
it seems certain, therefore, that the central mass must be 
composed of material nearly if not quite as heavy as iron. 

The various up-turnings, breaks, faults, and folds 
of the rock envelope have revealed much concern- 
ing its structure and composition. The outer part 
consists mainly of sediments which, previously worn 
from the surface rocks, have been transported and 
deposited by the action of water. In time the sedi- 
ments so transported and distributed have again 
hardened into rock. As a rule, the under and lower 
layers have been so altered by the action of heat and 



PHYSIOGRAPHIC PROCESSES 49 

pressure in the presence of moisture that they seem 
to have been half fused in some instances, and are 
crystalline in others, thus constituting the "metamor- 
phic " rocks. Below these deposits the sediments are 
absent, and all the material seems to have been sub- 
jected to intense heat : even among the sedimentary 
rock great masses of molten rock, much resembling 
furnace slags, have been intruded, and in many 
instances these have reached the surface as lava 
flows, or else have been exposed at the breaks and 
folds of the overlying sedimentary rocks. 

The composition of the rock envelope is fairly well 
known. Some eighty or more chemical elements have 
been found, many of which are also known to exist in 
the sun. Of this number oxygen, calcium, iron, 
silicon, and aluminium form the chief part of it ; 
carbon, sodium, potassium, sulphur, and hydrogen are 
probably next in abundance. So great is the pro- 
portion of these that it is hardly an exaggeration to 
say that were every other known element removed 
from the earth, the diminution in volume would be 
scarcely measurable. Gold, for instance, is one of the 
most widely diffused of elements, and it is used more 
or less by almost every people in the world ; yet all 
the gold that has been mined would scarcely half 
fill a drawing-room of ordinary size. 

The most casual inspection of the rock envelope, 
however, shows that the processes by which it has 



50 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

reached its present form have been very complex ; 
they likewise indicate that the resulting changes have 
required long periods of time. The various agents 
that have "weathered" or disintegrated the surface 
have been very active ; and no part of the land seems 
to have escaped their work. The work, however, has 
generally been systematic in character. First, the 
exposed rock surface has been disintegrated ; secondly, 
the substance worn off has been transported and 
deposited in layers ; thirdly, the layers of sediment 
have been folded and crumpled by earth movements. 
All this is shown by the rock layers themselves. Their 
texture usually shows their origin at a glance. Origi- 
nally deposited in horizontal sheets, they were sub- 
sequently warped, wrinkled, and cockled in about the 
same manner as though a thick envelope or cover 
were trying to fit itself about a body that had shrunken 
until it was several sizes too small. In some instances 
the irregularities have taken the form of long and 
fairly regular folds ; in others the layers are much 
broken. In various places one may find great blocks 
of rock, more than one thousand miles long and a 
hundred miles across, displaced and tilted so that the 
upturned edge is perhaps a mile higher on the one 
side than on the other. In very many places the strata 
have been broken in such a way that one side of the 
break is several hundred feet higher than the surface 
of the other. 



PHYSIOGRAPHIC PROCESSES 5I 

It is not many years since these movements of the 
rock envelope were thought to belong to a geological 
period that had closed, and that the rock envelope 
itself had become quite firm and rigid. The contrary, 
however, is true. Careful measurements show beyond 
doubt that movements in the rock envelope are going 
on even at the present time — slowly, very slowly, it is 
true, but at a rate that is approximately measurable. 

That many of the relative changes in surface level 
result from earth shocks cannot be doubted ; the 
vertical movement, sometimes aggregating many feet, 
is apparent to casual notice. Bradyseismic or slow 
movements have been noticed along various coasts for 
over a century also, but it is only within a few decades 
that they have been closely and critically observed. 
The rising coast of Norway and the sinking shore line 
of West Greenland have long been matters of comment 
and speculation among geographers. 

More recent and critical examinations, however, have 
revealed something like a definite and systematic 
law — perhaps not universal and without exceptions, 
but still so general in its character that it has been 
commonly accepted. Briefly stated, it has been found 
that in regions in which sediment is being deposited a 
downward movement or sinking is going on, while in 
regions from which material is being removed a rising 
or upward movement is taking place. In time, doubt- 
less, as investigation is more complete, the foregoing 



52 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

statement of such a law may be somewhat modified, but 
at the present tune it seems to be worthy of a place 
as a general truth. It is much the same as though a 
weight were placed on the surface of an inflated toy 
balloon. The added weight causes a sinking or de- 
pression of the surfaces of the balloon, and if the 
weight be carefully moved a little distance, there is an 
outward reaction at the point from which the weight 
is moved, and a consequent inward movement at the 
place to which the weight is moved. For many years 
these movements have been observed along the coasts 
of the continents, but it is only within recent years 
that they have been definitely investigated in regions 
far inland. 

The old shore lines of Lake Bonneville, of which 
Great Salt Lake is the chief remnant, furnish an 
excellent illustration. The ancient shore lines along 
the escarpment of the Uinta Mountains are nearly one 
thousand feet above the present level of Great Salt 
Lake. The contemporary margins of the islands within 
the lake are about two hundred feet higher, a fact that 
is capable of only one explanation — there must have 
been an upward " crustal " movement at this locality.^ 
The old shore line of Lake Ontario — now called the 

1 It is hardly safe to infer that the uplift resulted wholly from the desic- 
cation of Lake Bonneville and the relief from the weight of its waters. 
On the contrary, Mr. Woodward has shown that the removal of the water 
is competent to account for only a small part of the uplift. 



PHYSIOGRAPHIC PROCESSES 53 

"terrace road " — has long been known, but only within 
recent years has the fact come to light that the terrace 
is warped, that it is no longer a true level. Certainly 
the terrace, having been a beach, was orginally level, 
and the disturbance can be explained only by the exist- 
ence of an earth movement that has since occurred. 

The result of recent investigations that have cov- 
ered much of the two continents show that these 
slow movements are going on at nearly every part of 
the earth ; they rarely exceed a few inches a century ; 
they cover much larger areas than the sudden and 
catastrophic earthquake movements ; and, moreover, 
no part of the earth seems to be free from them. 
Notwithstanding the slow rate of motion, the aggregate 
movement may reach several thousand feet, and the 
area involved may possibly equal the larger part of 
a continent. The cause or causes of these movements 
are unknown, but it seems probable that the trans- 
ference of material from one part of the surface of 
the rock envelope to another may be one of them, 
or, at least, that a definite connection between the 
two facts may exist. Taking this view, it follows 
that the rock envelope or " crust " of the earth is in 
a condition of isostatic balance, and that any change 
or rearrangement of surface material is at once felt 
by the whole earth, and that the latter responds by 
changing its shape so as to keep the balance preserved. 

This theory is by no means new, but in the past 



54 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

few years it has acquired a new meaning, because it 
seems to underlie the fundamental laws of physiog- 
raphy, or earth-sculpture.i 

Thus it is seen that the surface of the rock envelope 
is constantly undergoing a process of modification by 
two sets of forces : one wrinkling and folding the 
surface so as to form mountains, plateaus, and conti- 
nents, and their corresponding depressions — all the 
topographic features, in fact ; the other, equally con- 
stant in levelling them off and reducing them to a 
base level. 

The recognition of this great principle has brought, 
not a new word, but the new use of an old word 
into geographic literature, the very appropriate term 
"physiography." It was employed by Professor Huxley 
some years ago to designate certain features of the 
river Thames and its basin, and as used it was expres- 
sive and admirably selected. Professor Huxley's em- 
ployment of it was doubtless the forerunner of its 
more recent adoption as a permanent word in the 

1 Beyond the mere fact of changes in level, it seems a very debatable 
question among geographers v^^hether the ordinary topographic forms are 
results of such earth movements or not. Formerly it was generally 
believed that the principal topographic features — the continents, plateaus, 
and mountain systems — resulted from the fitting of the rock envelope 
about a more rapidly shrinking interior, and it is probable that this belief 
is still held by most scholars, at least so far as the origin of plateaus and 
mountain systems is concerned. Either idea is capable of explaining most 
of the facts concerning their origin, but neither one alone nor both together 
will account for all of them. 



PHYSIOGRAPHIC PROCESSES 55 

nomenclature of modern geographic science. Indeed, 
so expressive is the meaning conveyed, the wonder is 
that it should so long have escaped geographers. 

It is only a few years since that the underlying 
principle of geography was fixity — everything was 
viewed as unchangeable. Nowadays the idea that the 
modern teacher of geography emphasizes most strongly 
is that nothing in nature is unchangeable except eternal 
change. And so the term "physiography" has come to 
apply to earth-changes viewed in the light of systematic 
processes, the modifying clause being italicized because it 
is this afterthought that marks the distinction between 
Professor Huxley's use of the word and its renaissance. 
Perhaps it would be better to say that physiography is 
the evolution of the surface features. 

Let us apply this thought concretely. Thus, accord- 
ing to former treatment, a river was a fixed and un- 
changing feature of the present rather than an ever 
changing panorama of action belonging to past, pres- 
ent, and future. As a feature of physical geography 
its torrential, transporting, and depositing parts were 
described, and the description closed with a considera- 
tion of some one or another of its unusual features. 
But from the standpoint of physiography, a more philo- 
sophical consideration is demanded than mere ques- 
tions of morphology suggest. To the student of 
nature there is something about the regimen of a 
river that indicates intelligence ; it certainly is not a 



56 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

living thing, but it seems to be guided by positive in- 
telligence ; it behaves like something more than the 
mechanical agent it really is. 

Let us imagine that in some place or other a plain 
has been recently formed — perhaps by the elevation 
of a shore deposit, perhaps by the drainage and death 
of a lake. In either case the drainage of the plain has 
many difficulties ; and therefore a considerable time must 
elapse before the run-off develops anything like a chan- 
nel that systematically collects the downpour of rain. 
One channel after another may be chosen and rejected. 
It may not be wisely chosen ; or, if it be well selected, 
it may be so much obstructed by sediment that it is 
easier to make a new channel than to clear out the 
one self-clogged. This is the infant period of the 
stream's existence. 

In time, however, the river reaches maturity, and 
thereafter it develops strength and vigor. It extends 
its infant tributaries until each has the character of a 
master stream. It pushes its headwater ravines back- 
ward to the limits of its basin, perhaps crossing a 
divide, and capturing and diverting a less vigorous 
stream. Farther down it spreads the sediment it can- 
not carry, building on both sides a flood plain ; and if 
the mouth of the stream does not face too strong a 
tide, the flood plain may extend a considerable distance 
seaward, forming a delta and, possibly, a wide strip of 
made land along the coast. 



PHYSIOGRAPHIC PROCESSES 57 

When the headwater branches have reached back- 
ward toward the divide, and have carried away all 
the material they can reach, the old age of the river 
begins. At last it attacks the flood plain and carries 
that away too, and thenceforth it is in its senile stage. 
Very likely, however, there may be an elevation of its 
basin that rejuvenates it, for its actual history is 
usually much more complex than the theoretical case 
above given. Changes of climate, accident, the uncov- 
ering of a stratum of rock having a dip different from 
that to which the river has adjusted itself — all these 
may interfere with its normal development ; but as a 
rule every river passes through the first two of these 
stages. 

Or suppose that an additional factor, a progressive 
change of level, is introduced. Imagine that a coast 
region, fairly diversified with mountains and valleys, 
and generously supplied with rain, gradually sinks 
below sea level. Because of the general surface ero- 
sion, resulting from rain and from running water, 
the relief features have lost their boldness and have 
been worn down until their angular outlines have 
given place to rounded and graceful forms. The 
products of erosion, the rock waste, has not only filled 
the valleys, but a large amount of detritus has been 
deposited along the coast, in the meantime building 
a wide coast plain. But subsidence results in a more 
Striking change. Little by little the coast plain is 



58 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

submerged, and finally it disappears ; then the foot- 
hills, or piedmont lands, gradually are buried ; the 
valleys between the ranges are flooded ; and finally 
the ranges themselves become peninsulas or, perhaps, 
are cut off from the mainland, each becoming a chain 
of islands. The rivers lose their character, and their 
watersheds are robbed of much of their area by the 
encroachment of the sea. The lower part or trunk 
of the master stream is drowned with the coast plain, 
and each headwater branch becomes a feeble trunk 
stream. Instead of a great river system of tributa- 
ries all gathering into a single trunk channel, there 
results a number of short mountain torrents ; the 
whole river system seems to be, and practically is, 
completely dismembered. 

But sinking and uplift usually alternate at irregu- 
lar intervals, and sooner or later the latter movement 
begins to take place. The old coast plain, pretty 
well covered by marine and alluvial deposits, still 
preserves most of its surface character. So, as the 
uplift proceeds, little by little it emerges above sea 
level. As fast as the uplift takes place, the old, 
buried stream channels are recovered by their former 
occupants. Slight structural changes, such as the 
warping of the plain, may have occurred, and new 
stream channels are formed here and there. Per- 
haps the waters of some of them may be captured 
and absorbed by the older, revived stream ; possibly 



PHYSIOGRAPHIC PROCESSES 59 

the young stream, having a steeper slope, itself may- 
be the more vigorous, and therefore acquire the older 
river. In any case, however, the dissevered tributa- 
ries recover the old trunk channel and restore some- 
thing like the former system of drainage. 

In this way the process may be long continued ; 
alternate subsidence and upheaval in turn bury and 
resurrect a stream, until the plain itself is dissected 
into isolated mesas or tablelands, and in time even 
these may be removed. 

The classification of rivers as infant, mature, and 
senile may border on the theoretical, but nevertheless 
there is a very practical side. In the United States 
about the only infant stream of importance is the Red 
River of the North, which has just barely secured a 
fairly permanent channel in the level bed of the old 
glacial body of fresh water. Lake Agassiz. The 
mature streams are almost without number, but of 
typically senile rivers there is scarce an example. 
The lower St. Lawrence has disposed of the greater 
part of its flood plain, and some of the streams of 
New England are reaching the same condition ; but 
they are comparatively, not absolutely, old in their 
stage of progress. 

The physiographic history of a lake stands in con- 
trast to that of a river. The latter illustrates the 
effects of water in motion ; the former, of water at 
rest. Let us follow the history of one of the com- 



6o THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

mon marsh lakes. A stream in its downward course 
encounters a basin-shaped depression, and a lake is 
thereby formed. As the water accumulates in the 
depression, one or the other of two things in time will 
take place ; either the basin fills until the inflow 
balances the amount lost by evaporation, or else the 
level of the water rises until there is a run-off at the 
lowest part of the basin rim. 

From the moment the lake comes into existence, 
various factors at once set to work to destroy it. 
Vegetation is a very potent agent. Grasses and 
sedges border the shore ; the moist ground favors 
their growth, and their dead stalks and leaves accu- 
mulate along the margin. Algae, species of sphag- 
num, and other bog plants also get roothold along 
the shore, and spread inwardly toward the centre of 
the lake. Their dead remains likewise accumulate 
along the shore. Moreover, these same accumula- 
tions provide lodgement for the wind-blown rock 
waste — sand, dust, and every sort of fine earth mat- 
ter that may be swept along by the wind. So there 
is not only an encroachment inward from the margin, 
but if the water be shallow, vegetation may get root 
almost anywhere at the bottom, and there carry on 
the process of filling. Time, therefore, is then the 
only factor required to obliterate the lake as it passes 
through the various stages of marsh, swamp, and 
meadow. 



PHYSIOGRAPHIC PROCESSES 6 1 

Rivers, as Gilbert puts it, are the mortal enemies 
of lakes. The stream that flows into a lake fills its 
head with sediments ; the stream that flows out of it 
cuts the notch in the basin rim lower and lower 
until it is nearly or wholly drained. 

In a like manner one might follow in detail the 
uplifts and foldings that make plateaus and mountain 
ranges, and also the weathering and degradation that 
sculpture the passes and fill the intermontane valleys 
with nutritious soil. All these processes, however 
complex they may be, are systematic and continuous ; 
and, as will be seen in subsequent chapters, they are 
most intimately connected with mankind, his history 
and his activities. 

There is another aspect of physiography, however, 
that is very far-reaching. Although organic life draws 
its nutrition from the earth, it obtains but very little 
directly from undisturbed rocks. The latter must be 
ground into fine particles and converted into soil. 
Now, by the operation of the various physiographic 
agents, not only is an abundance of rock waste 
formed, but it is transported to regions of much 
lower level and there converted into soil ; and, in gen- 
eral, those regions having an abundance of soil are 
also the regions in which life is most abundant. So, 
in the end, the various physiographic processes are 
quite as necessary to human existence as are fortui- 
tous conditions of climate. Indeed, as we shall learn, 



62 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

were not all the conditions just what they are, life in 
its present forms could not exist. Communities there- 
fore are most happily situated when they are in perfect 
harmony with their geographic environment ; and they 
are wisest when they have learned to adjust them- 
selves to it. 



CHAPTER IV 
The Distribution of Life 

Of the fifty-three million square miles that compose 
the land surface of the earth, only a small area is 
capable of supporting the higher forms of life. If we 
take the United States as an example, the insular pos- 
sessions excepted, nearly half the area is but very 
feebly productive, and therefore will be always sparsely 
peopled for that reason. Europe possesses a relatively 
larger, and Asia a relatively smaller, productive area. 
Africa and South America both have very large areas 
that practically support no life, while by far the greater 
part of Australia can support no population at all. 
Indeed, of the fourteen hundred million of human be- 
ings that people the earth, about one-half the number 
live in less than one-seventh of its area. Most living 
beings are compelled to live in the region that produces 
their food ; man is practically the only species that can 
live beyond the boundaries of the region that produces 
his food ; his is the only species that can provide for 
the transportation of food. 

The reasons for this unequal distribution of life are 
partly topographic and partly climatic ; sometimes they 
operate singly, and in other instances both are factors ; 

63 



64 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

sometimes their effects are direct, and in other instances, 
indirect. In nearly every case the two factors go 
almost wholly to make up what is called environment. 
The effects of topography are not difficult to under- 
stand. In the first place, a region of very steep slopes, 
however well adapted to be the home of animals with 
four legs, is not well suited to those of two. Man is 
the only animal capable of civihzation, and the latter is 
very largely dependent upon intercommunication. The 
rugged topography of mountainous regions prevents 
intercommunication and makes isolation almost com- 
pulsory. One may see the effects of such isolation 
in instances widely remote. More than two thousand 
years ago the Basques, an Iberian people living in 
Spain, were driven into the fastnesses of the Pyrenees 
Mountains by the invaders of the peninsulas. Their 
geographic surroundings have been such that they 
have been out of touch with the rest of the world, 
and, as a result, they have remained practically un- 
changed in customs, social institutions, and language 
since that time. Even in the United. States, where the 
facilities for intercommunication surpass those of the 
rest of the world, one can observe similar results. Thus 
the people in many parts of the southern Appalachians 
have been so isolated by the inaccessibility of the coun- 
try in which they live that their social customs are in 
about as close harmony with the period of one hundred 
years ago as with that of the present decade. Similar 



THE DISTRIBUTION OF LIFE 65 

conditions are observable when one compares the Alba- 
nians with the Romans of the river plains and coast low- 
lands, or even the highland with the lowland Scotch. 
And in about every instance the explanation is the same : 
rugged topography, by making intercommunication diffi- 
cult, practically isolates them, and they therefore preserve 
characteristics, manners, and social customs that have 
disappeared from more modern forms of civilization. 

In general, Aryan civiUzation has pushed westward 
rather than eastward. This it did, not for reasons his- 
torical or political, but because the gentle and nearly 
level plains of the Atlantic slopes offered less resistance 
than the rugged fastnesses of the Asian highlands. Per- 
haps the most notable exception to this statement may 
be found in the case of movements of Sclavonic peoples 
noted in the following chapter. 

In at least one other way, too, topography exerts a 
most important bearing on the distribution of life. Nutri- 
tion, the physical basis of life, requires soil, and soil is 
derived from rock waste. The higher forms of animal 
require, many of them, both flesh and vegetable matter 
for food ; all of them in one way or another require the 
existence of plant life, and the latter draws its nutrition 
mainly from the soil. In other words, nearly all life is 
dependent on the near-by existence of the soil formed 
from rock waste, and life is most profuse in those places 
where there is an abundance of soil. 

But soil is partly -decomposed rock waste plus certain 



66 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

substances, such as water, the compounds of nitrogen, 
and other matter derived from the decay of organic sub- 
stances. For the greater part the rock waste is formed 
by the erosion and weathering that goes on in the high- 
lands. By means of water in its various forms, by winds, 
and because of the force of gravity, it is steadily mov- 
ing toward sea level. On its way downward it is broken 
finer and finer, until at last much of it is an impalpable 
substance, mixed with coarser pieces. Some of it lodges 
in lake beds and similar depressions ; some fills the river 
valleys, building deep and broad flood plains ; some is 
scattered loosely over the surface rocks ; and much of it 
is carried to the sea or to lakes, being finally deposited 
in the form of deltas and coast plains. It is in one 
or another of these physiographic forms that the rock 
waste, converted into soil, best meets the requirements 
of life. 

It is for this reason, therefore, that most of the world's 
population is concentrated in the lowland plains. In- 
deed, not far from ninety per cent of it is thus distributed, 
and the reason, as has been noted, is twofold ; the inter- 
communication of commerce is easier, and the regions 
themselves are food-producing. Moreover, in general, 
the civilization of the lowland population is of a dis- 
tinctly higher type than that of mountains and plateaus. 

On the other hand, the environment of highland 
regions is usually such as to produce strong charac- 
ters. Through Khaibar Pass, from the highlands of 



THE DISTRIBUTION OF LIFE ^'J 

Asia, invaders and conquerors have followed one after 
another into the plains of the Ganges and the Yangtze 
almost without number. Indeed, in studying backward, 
we may follow invasion and conquest, one after another, 
until one is lost in the mists of antiquity. After two or 
three generations the invaders themselves, weakened 
by lives of ease and luxurious living, became the vic- 
tims of conquest. In but few instances have highland 
people succumbed to invading hosts from the lowlands. 
The Basques, the Kelts, the Swiss, the Montenegrans, 
the Afghans, the Baluchs, and many other peoples may 
have been forced into mountain fastnesses, but they have 
never been driven from these strongholds. 

The existence and distribution of life do not depend 
lone on the fortuitous arrangement of topographic 
forms. Other factors far more restrictive are involved, 
and of these the most important and far-reaching are 
the effects of heat and moisture. Granted that the 
difference in the average temperature of different 
parts of the earth is not extremely great, neverthe- 
less the span of life exists between limits that are 
very close. Physical science is acquainted with a 
range of several thousand degrees in temperature — 
from the freezing-point of liquid hydrogen to the 
vaporizing temperature of the most refractory solids 
— yet the range at which life can endure for any 
great length of time is but little more than one hundred 
degrees. For instance, if the temperature of every 



68 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

part of the earth were not higher than the melting- 
point of ice, Hfe as we now know it could not exist, 
because water in its liquid form is the vehicle by 
which nutrition is conveyed from the earth to the 
organism, and water is also the substance by which 
it is distributed throughout the organism. So neces- 
sary is water as the vehicle of nutrition, that the 
organism deprived of it even for a few hours is apt 
to suffer fatally. It is obvious, therefore, that a 
temperature at which water cannot exist in its hquid 
form would be fatal to all forms of life as it is now 
constituted. It is equally obvious that life as it is 
now constituted depends upon both temperature and 
moisture, and it must adapt itself to the conditions 
surrounding, or it will disappear. 

Thus, about thirty inches of rain, distributed in 
showers of not less than monthly intervals, are neces- 
sary to the existence of turf grass. If the total rainfall 
is decreased one-half, or if there are successive droughts 
of several months in duration, the turf grass will die. If 
there are cattle in the region, they must adapt them- 
selves to other vegetation or else migrate ; otherwise 
they, too, will die. And if there are people depend- 
ing on the cattle herds, they also must change their 
employment or migrate. 

The conditions of temperature and moisture of a 
region constitute its climate, and, on the whole, climate 
has far more to do with life and its activities than 



THE DISTRIBUTION OF LIFE 69 

topography ; moreover, of these two fundamental prin- 
ciples of geography, climate exercises the greater con- 
trol over mankind. Man can largely overcome the 
obstacles imposed by topography, but, excepting iso- 
lated cases, he can scarcely rise superior to the 
conditions of climate. Outside the torrid zone he 
cannot live without shelter and clothing ; even in most 
habitable places he must depend to a considerable 
extent on artificial warmth. A casual thought, more- 
over, will show that a far greater area of the earth 
is made unhabitable by adverse conditions of climate 
than by unfortuitous conditions of topography. 

Polar regions are too cold to support many forms of 
life. Grasses do not thrive, and the reindeer and 
musk ox, about the only grazing animals, live mainly on 
mosses and lichens. Except to a very limited extent, 
the grains cannot be cultivated there. The few native 
people, therefore, are almost wholly carnivorous, not 
only from choice, but from necessity. This fact alone 
prevents any high degree of civilization and enlight- 
enment, even were all other conditions favorable. 
Moreover, from the nature of the case, no great concen- 
tration of population is possible in regions perpetually 
covered with snow and ice, or in localities where dark- 
ness is of six months' duration. The reasons, there- 
fore, are climatic and not topographic.^ 

. 1 The speculative profits of seal fur, whale products, and gold are almost 
wholly responsible for the presence of Aryan peoples in these regions. 



70 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRArHY 

Deserts are very sparsely peopled. Being near, or 
perhaps within tropical latitudes, they are apt to be too 
hot for habitation ; in all localities they are too dry. A 
desert is a desert, not by reason of the sand, which, 
incidentally, is not there, nor yet for the intense heat; 
the essential feature is the absence of moisture. There 
is no dividing line between fertile regions and arid 
lands, nor between the latter and desert areas ; in gen- 
eral, however, a region too dry to produce food-stuffs is 
a desert. About one-sixth each of Eurasia and North 
America, one-third of Africa, and two-thirds of Austra- 
lia are either desert regions or else too dry to support 
more than a very sparse population. In the basins of 
the Mississippi, the Ganges, the Po, and the Yangtze 
one may find conditions of soil and climate that in 
the highest degree are adaptable to a dense population. 
In many instances these are agricultural areas that 
practically are self-supporting, in which the density of 
population exceeds three hundred to the square m.ile — 
not far from two persons to each acre. Certainly not 
all land is so highly productive, and the average noted 
is probably not very far from the limit. In general, 
however, the regions that are capable of producing the 
greatest abundance of food-stuffs are also the regions 
of densest population, and they are apt to be densely 
peopled because they are productive.^ 

1 Large cities and regions in which manufacture is the chief enterprise, 
of course, are exceptions to this statement, The New England and 



THE DISTRIBUTION OF LIFE /I 

In the great upland regions, such as the western 
United States, Mexico, the western Chinese Empire, 
and the plateaus of Africa and South America, — in 
general, between the 2500 feet and 6000 feet contours 
of level, — the density of population is very low ; only in 
a few small and highly favored localities does it exceed 
fifty to the square mile. A reason, therefore, is not hard 
to find : most of the great plateau regions are deficient 
in rainfall and in good soil as well. 

There are also extensive regions that are unhabitable 
by man because of excessive moisture. For instance, 
the great rainfall in the basin of the Amazon renders 
more than one million square miles practically unpro- 
ductive ; the results of heat and moisture are forests 
instead of food-stuffs. A similar instance, though in a 
lesser degree, occurs in the basin of the Kongo. The 
tundras of the Arctic region and the various coast 
marshes are also unhabitable because of wetness, and 
their area aggregates between two and three millions of 
square miles. In still other instances vast areas are 
unproductive because the long-continued season of 
rains is followed by seven or eight months of drought. 
Of the entire land surface of the earth probably not 
far from one-third will always remain nearly destitute 
of population, and in by far the greater part the 

Middle Atlantic states, because of the manufactures and commerce, are 
densely peopled; but the food for the greater part consumed there is 
brought from the prairie region. 



72 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

sparseness or absence of population is due to climatic 
influences alone. 

In such localities as the eastern part of the United 
States, eastern China, western Europe, their various 
prairies, coast plains, and flood plains, one finds the 
greatest possibilities of productivity. As a result, the 
greatest density of population exists in these regions. 
The rainfall is within the limits required by grass, 
grains, fruits, and other plant life upon which human 
beings depend ; and in but few places is the tempera- 
ture subject to great extremes. As a result, they are the 
home of the races that represent the activity of the world. 

But sensitive as the distribution of human beings 
over the earth may seem, the dispersal of other 
species is a matter of even more delicate adjustment. 
It is hardly necessary to add that chance or acci- 
dent plays but a very minor part in the matter : 
everywhere one is face to face with the fact that 
fixed laws are involved, and also that the laws are 
geographic in character. The question may be exam- 
ined from two aspects ; namely, the agents that aid 
and those that prevent dispersal. 

Almost all forms of life are provided with means 
whereby they can extend their territory. Nearly all 
animals have the power of extended locomotion, and 
probably all have it to a limited degree at some time 
or other during their existence.^ Most vertebrates 

1 Nearly all insects popularly known as wingless have at least one stage 



THE DISTRIBUTION OF LIFE 73 

walk, some fly, and some swim ; a few species do all 
three. Even plants, which have not the power of 
voluntary locomotion, in many instances are able to 
extend their territory. The creeping roots of many 
species bear buds that develop into aerial growths ; 
and the seeds dropped from almost any plant are dis- 
tributed over an area considerably larger than that 
covered by the parent plant itself. Wind and water 
are highly important factors in the distribution of all 
sorts of life, even including mankind. It requires no 
great feat of the intellect to understand that the 
wind may carry seeds, like those of the dandelion or 
thistle, into foreign territory, and even across high 
mountain ranges. The wind may accomplish still 
more ; it may blow from place to place seeds that 
have no furze until they finally tumble into a river 
or other body of water. Moreover, it may blow the 
seeds or even floating animals a long distance from 
the shore. It is quite certain that many of the Poly- 
nesian Islands have been peopled in part by the aid 
of the winds, which have blown the canoes from in- 
habited shores to new and unpeopled atolls. 

In conjunction with the wind, marine currents have 
aided largely in the distribution of life. The waters 
of the Gulf Stream have strewn much of its course 

in which they have well-developed wings, and are capable of flight. Some 
of the aphides cast both their wings and their legs, but not till after they 
have become fixed to the plant on which they are parasites. 



74 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

with minute organisms that were brought from the 
Caribbean Sea, and seeds, plants, and floating ani- 
mals also have been carried from tropical Ameri- 
can to European shores. The great Equatorial 
Current has been a potent factor in the distribution 
of life among the islands along its route, operating 
largely in conjunction with the winds. Roughly, the 
flora of these islands consists of two general classes 
— the plants whose seeds were carried by winds and 
currents, on the one hand, and those brought in the 
crops of migratory birds, on the other. 

In general, when we consider the unrestricted dis- 
persal of species we find an interesting aspect. In 
the temperate zones, as a rule, the extension of terri- 
tory has been from west to east ; in the torrid zone, 
from east to west. And the explanation is not 
hard to find ; the winds and the ocean currents have 
borne them. 

i Local and accidental factors that cause the dis- 
persal of life are not rare. Rivers, especially during 
flood seasons, carry many sorts of seeds which are 
self-sown along the lower flood plains. But few 
species of forestry have a wider territory than the 
willows, and their distribution is almost wholly the 
work of stream waters. The water hyacinth is an- 
other example, and its accidental introduction into 
two or three rivers of Florida and the adjacent 
watersheds has nearly destroyed navigation in some 



THE DISTRIBUTION OF LIFE 75 

of the streams, and has almost ruined their depend- 
ent industries. 

Commerce, accident, and design have resulted in 
the extension of the territory of many species. The 
domestic fruits and food-stuffs have accompanied Aryan 
migrations, being found almost everywhere that man 
lives. The cinchona tree, once confined to the Peruvian 
Andes, by the intervention of man has been carried 
to the East Indies and the islands of the Antilles. The 
cultivated species of cotton brought from India found 
a new territory in the United States, and the latter now 
produces nearly four-fifths of the world's supply. Tea, 
so long a monopoly of China, now thrives in Ceylon, 
Japan, and the United States. The ostrich is at home 
in California, and the camel still survives in the desert 
region of the lower Colorado. The gypsy moth in 
Massachusetts and the codling moth in California are 
adopted charges that each locality would gladly sur- 
render. The Colorado beetle in the United States 
and the rabbit in Australia are accidents in the great 
laws of dispersal that have compelled the readjustment 
of several industries. And so, with the many means 
of dispersal, one might wonder why the distribution of 
life does not approach a condition that is almost homo- 
geneous. 

But there are regions penetrated by ocean currents 
in which the life forms carried there will not survive. 
There are quite as many swept by the winds which 



76 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

the winds never sow ; and there are also areas sown with 
seed that the soil never fertilizes. There are flights 
which birds do not make ; and there are boundaries 
that all the powers of locomotion will not surmount. 
Such extraordinary conditions cannot, of course, exist 
without causes, and the latter constitute the natural 
barriers to dispersal. The barriers to dispersal, more- 
over, may be far more potent preventives than the 
agents that effect it. 

The barriers to dispersal may be of various kinds, 
but, in general, they are of two classes ; namely, 
physiographic features and environment. High moun- 
tains are a barrier to such species as are not provided with 
organs of locomotion ; for if the individuals of a species 
are not provided with means of locomotion, they cer- 
tainly cannot cross the ranges. Moreover, though the 
hardier individuals of a species may surmount a lofty 
range, though they may survive the low temperature of its 
summit, the conditions of climate on the opposite may 
be so different that the species would not survive even 
if the range were crossed. 

The ocean and its arms have been more or less effec- 
tive as barriers to plants and most species of animals. 
A few birds endowed with extraordinary powers of flight 
have crossed the narrower arms and even the broader 
stretches of the sea. To the few species of aquatic 
birds that speed with a velocity of more than sixty 
miles an hour, the crossing of the Atlantic, therefore. 



THE DISTRIBUTION OF LIFE 'jy 

would involve a matter of not more than forty or fifty- 
hours. Such instances, however, are rare and unusual, 
and the ocean is a barrier to about every species except 
man. To mankind it is less effective than either a 
great highland or a desert. The Greek peoples could 
much more readily scatter along the shores of the 
Mediterranean than they could surmount the Balkan 
Mountains, and until the advent of the railway, the 
sixteen thousand miles around Cape Horn was both 
shorter in time and more economical than the passage 
of the Rocky Mountains. 

Deserts are very decided barriers, for not only may 
the surface be extremely rugged, but the absence of 
moisture is even a greater obstacle. Except in the 
seed stage, few species of plant life can retain their 
vitality for any length of time in a region of such 
extremes. From San Bernardino to Yuma the Col- 
orado Desert is less than two hundred miles across, 
yet the cattleman who attempts to drive a herd from 
one place to the other must break his herd into small 
bands and select the time for crossing with the great- 
est care. Old settlers of Southern California still 
relate the story of a cattleman who attempted to 
drive a herd of eight thousand head across this 
desert. Had he broken his herd into small bands of 
three or four hundred, most likely there would have 
been no very serious loss. Instead of this plan he 
made the attempt to take the whole herd across. 



y8 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

When they had reached the first watering-place, there 
was water for only a small fraction of the number ; 
by- morning the herd was crazed with thirst ; to add 
to the difficulty a mirage, the illusion of a lake, ap- 
peared at a short distance ; the herd stampeded, and 
as a result their bones are about the only relief in 
the landscape of the adjoining desert waste. In- 
stances of similar kind might easily be multiplied ; 
the grewsome story of the emigrants who perished 
in Death Valley only goes still further to emphasize 
the effectiveness of the desert as a barrier to the 
spreading of species. 

Environment, generally considered as a cause of 
variation in species, is even more effective as a bar- 
rier. Every species exists between certain limits — 
limits of temperature, of rainfall, of conditions of soil, 
and of nutrition. If, for instance, the lower limit of 
temperature for a species is 35° F., it will be extermi- 
nated by freezing weather ; if it requires a monthly 
rainfall, it will not survive long-continued droughts ; 
if certain conditions of soil are essential, it will per- 
ish without them ; if certain definite food-stuffs are 
necessary, it will starve unless they are provided. If 
all the conditions of environment have a wide range, 
the realm of the species will be wide ; moreover, it 
may be extended by transference to similar areas far 
removed. It wiM most likely thrive there, but still it 
may not. It may find enemies that are ready to 



THE DISTRIBUTION OF LIFE ;79 

exterminate it, or it may find the region already pre- 
empted by others that resist encroachment. So one 
may readily find species capable of a wide dispersal 
occupying each a very limited territory, while others 
that are sensitive to very slight changes have each a 
remarkably wide range. 

The distribution of life over the earth is a magnifi- 
cent exhibition of nature's balance. Disturb the lat- 
ter ever so little, and there follows a general and 
compulsory readjustment all along the line. In a 
traditional story Professor Huxley has jocularly illus- 
trated a great truth. As the tradition goes : " When 
all the old maids of Bromwicham in a unison of rage 
drowned their cats, there came a plague of field-mice 
that before had been slain by the cats. But when 
the field-mice came, they began to destroy the humble- 
bees ; and as the latter fertilized the clover flowers, 
when they were no more, the clover died ; and when 
the clover was no more, the farmers gathered their 
herds and marched out of Bromwicham. And the 
five and twenty hundred maiden ladies died of 
vexation." 

The story has so many exact parallels that it is 
quite as near to tJie truth as to a truth. Thus, years 
ago, the cane rat infested the island of Jamaica to 
the extent that the sugar industry was in great peril. 
In other localities it had been learned that the mon- 
goose had proved a deadly enemy to the rat, and so 



8o THE NEW BASIS OF GE0G1'L\PHY 

the mongoose was brought to Jamaica with the ex- 
pectation that it would make short work of the cane 
rat. Contrary to expectations, however, the mongoose 
found the ground birds much more to its liking, and 
little by little as these disappeared, there came such a 
plague of cattle "ticks" that the herds were threat- 
ened with destruction. The ground birds had pre- 
vented any great increase of the parasitic insects, 
but when they had disappeared, the latter quickly 
became an intolerable pest. A still more singular 
result is related by Dr. Eugene Aaron, who investi- 
gated the subject closely. The cane rats in many 
instances were driven from the fields to the houses 
and the orchards, developing a climbing instinct that 
undoubtedly they possessed, but had not practised. 
In fact, the readjustment resulting from the introduc- 
tion of the mongoose involved not only domestic 
affairs, but legislative measures of international char- 
acter as well. 

The foregoing pages illustrate in a rather elemen- 
tary aspect the general laws concerning the distribu- 
tion of man and the inferior forms of life. There is 
much evidence, however, to show that changes in the 
height of the various continents with relation to sea 
level have had more or less to do with the migration 
of species. An elevation of five hundred feet would 
connect North America and Asia — probably in several 
places, certainly in one. With an elevation of two 



THE DISTRIBUTION OF LIFE 8 1 

thousand feet there would be only a narrow strait or 
two between the northeastern shores of America and 
Europe. Now changes of level much greater than 
these have occurred in the past, and the Northern 
Realm of America is so much like that of Eurasia 
that one may be led to suspect a community of 
origin. At the same time, each region has specific 
differences that are most easily explained by a sub- 
sequent separation of the two areas. 

That Asian species have reached the American 
continent by way of the peninsulas now sepa- 
rated by Bering Sea is certain. The species are in 
evidence, and there can be no doubt about their Asian 
origin. In both instances the evidence is strongly in 
favor of a dry-land migration, but still it must be re- 
garded as circumstantial and hypothetical rather than 
positive. 

In studying the distribution of life from the geo- 
graphic standpoint one fact stands out in bold relief ; 
namely, that the underlying law is the law of merci- 
less strife. It is a never ending struggle in which 
not necessarily the strongest, but the fittest, survive — 
that is, survival belongs to those that are the most 
perfectly in harmony with their environment. 



CHAPTER V 

Effects of Topography on Commercial 
Development 

It has already been noted that the great period of 
discovery which followed the blocking of the trade 
routes by the Turks was the result of commercial 
enterprise, and incidentally of a quickening intellect- 
ual development. But the question occurs : Why 
should the blocking of these routes create a disturb- 
ance that revolutionized the whole world ? If the 
former routes of trade were obstructed, why not go 
to the one side or the other and open new ones ? 
Let us put a parallel question : Suppose one were to 
block the canon of the Colorado River, why should 
not the water remove the obstruction ? The answer is 
easy : It couldn't. And the same answer applies in 
both cases ; there were no other routes to take. 
Conditions of topography and climate had made all 
others well-nigh impossible. These routes had been 
travelled highways for more than three thousand years, 
and there were no others that under prevailing con- 
ditions were feasible. The conditions that made them 
were geographic, and the conditions that made other 
routes impossible were likewise geographic. Man 

82 



EFFECTS OF TOPOGRAPHY 83 

may ordinarily overcome and rise superior to his 
environment, but he cannot annihilate it ; and among 
the things he cannot do is to make possible trade 
routes in impossible places. When we come to look 
at the matter squarely, one conclusion becomes irresis- 
tible ; namely, that in general about all the economies 
and activities of mankind are governed by conditions 
of topography and climate. 

In the preceding chapter it was shown that the rock 
envelope is undergoing constant movements, that eleva- 
tion and subsidence — imperceptible except after long 
intervals — are going on in pretty nearly every part of the 
earth, the most noticeable results being in the vicinity 
of coasts. Let us now study the effect of some of these 
movements on human activities. 

All along the coast of the New England Plateau, from 
Maine to Chesapeake Bay, a subsidence has taken place. 
Most of this coast region has a rugged surface, and as 
the latter sank below sea level, the valleys became bays 
and inlets, while the ridges formed the peninsulas and 
headlands that enclosed them. In other words, the 
lowering of the coast and the consequent intrusion of 
the sea made a great number of natural harbors. Now 
harbors are essential for marine traffic. Vessels cannot 
well lie out in the open, waiting days and weeks, perhaps, 
to discharge and receive their cargoes. Not only is it 
unsafe, but it is expensive ; and of two ports, one of 
which has a safe, protected anchorage and the other 



84 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

none, it is hardly necessary to designate which of the 
two will get the carrying trade. If there were no good 
harbors, if all vessels were compelled to lighter their 
cargoes on a lee shore, then one part of the coast would 
have no advantage over another, and there would be 
little choice in the matter. But where the geographic 
conditions make safe, commodious harbors in one place, 
and the reverse conditions in another, the question is 
different — the commerce of the sea will go to the coast 
having the good harbors. 

The result of good harbors is emphasized most clearly 
in the case already noted. The stretch of coast from 
Portland to Baltimore includes very nearly all the good 
harbors suitable for vessels of deep draught on the Atlan- 
tic coast of the United States,and practically all the marine 
commerce of the country goes in and out of these ports. 

The gentle slope of the coast plain south of Cape 
Henlopen, and the spits and barrier beaches that hem 
the coast, so completely obstruct navigation that only 
where some drowned river channel furnishes a natural 
approach for vessels does commerce have a fair chance, 
and these conditions, it is well to observe, are wholly 
geographic in character. 

For want of good harbors- — and there is scarcely a 
score of them along the whole extent of its coast — 
Africa is characterized by a low grade of civilization and 
a very backward state as to the progress of its native 
peoples. In the past century, about all the progress has 



EFFECTS OF TOPOGRAPHY 8$ 

resulted from external and not internal factors. In strong 
contrast to Africa is Western Europe ; and the difference 
is due, in no slight degree, to the existence of its harbors. 
They have invited and encouraged a close touch with 
the outside world ; while in Africa, the absence of them 
has repressed intercommunication. 

One must also bear in mind that human agency is no 
insignificant factor in the matter of harbors. If the har- 
bor does not offer the full measure of protection required, 
the man builds sea walls to make it a safe anchorage, 
and dredges or deepens channels to make it accessible. 
The basins of Liverpool, the ship channel of New York 
harbor with its buoys and range lights, and the sea 
walls that protect the entrances of so many harbors in 
Europe and America witness the indomitable pluck of 
man in overcoming difficulties that seem almost unsur- 
mountable. Along the shores of Lake Michigan there 
were better facilities for commerce than at Chicago, but 
the pluck and perseverance of man won ; and it was 
largely the enterprise of man that took the commercial 
supremacy away from Philadelphia and landed it for all 
time at New York. 

One must also bear in mind that the mere existence 
of harbors in themselves does not insure commercial 
greatness ; there must be habitable, productive land 
back of them. Commerce implies the existence of a 
more or less intelligent and civilized people. Unless 
a region is productive of food-stuffs of some kind or 



86 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

other, it will not long be habitable ; and if not habitable, 
the harbors of the region could hardly be considered 
as harbors at all. In other words, the latter are sup- 
posed to be something more than mere indentations 
of a coast ; they imply commerce ; and commerce, 
because it brings about intercommunication of peoples, 
also implies the diffusion of civilization and a higher 
plane of intelligence. 

There is another coast form that has a definite 
place in the literature of geography — the cape. Ordi- 
narily we are apt to toss off the consideration of this 
feature with the statement that it is "a point of land 
extending into the sea," and let it go with this dis- 
position of it. As a matter of fact, the physiographic 
aspect of the cape is its least important part. Further- 
more, the definition will hardly bear close criticism, 
because the term is applied indiscriminately to spits 
and hooks, to almost inconspicuous bends in a coast, 
and to rocky islets. 

The essential feature about a cape is its bearing upon 
navigation, and therefore upon commerce. Cape Clear, 
a rocky island off the Irish coast, does not interest 
any one as a "point of land," etc., but as a fine 
place for a wreck it is of the deepest interest to 
every navigator who enters the Channel. Cape Hat- 
teras, the angle of a barrier beach off the Sounds, is 
a similar case. Other capes, like Good Hope, have 
a very definite place in history. At first it was dubbed 



EFFECTS OF TOPOGRAPHY 87 

the "cape of the furies," because of the terrific storms 
that beset it ; but when King John of Portugal learned 
that its discovery had made an open door to India, 
he generously rechristened it with its present name. 

Now the casual inspection of almost any map will 
demonstrate the fact that there are capes that are 
not "points of land," etc., and also that not every 
point of land extending into the sea is called a cape. 
The essential feature about the cape is the fact that it 
is an exposed point of coast that affects commerce and 
navigation. St. Roque can hardly be called a typical 
cape from a physiographic standpoint, but it is very 
much a cape from the view of the master mariner 
who sails along the South American coast. It is most 
emphatically a cape to the shipper and the under- 
writer ; for, take away the warnings of its presence, 
and up go the rates of insurance, and up go also 
the prices of commodities that must round it in 
getting to market. Coffee and capes, therefore, may 
have something in common about them, and thereby 
the cape touches the most vulnerable part of the 
man — his pocket-book. 

The effect of the cape as an obstacle to commerce 
is very clearly emphasized in the case of Sandy 
Hook, a spit at the entrance to New York Bay. 
Because of its unfortuitous position, it compels all 
vessels of heavy draught to take a roundabout and a 
very difficult route from the lightship to the docks. 



88 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

In order to make the navigation of this channel clear 
and safe, there must be lightships, beacons, and range 
lights, a multitude of buoys, and all sorts of warning 
signals, the expense aggregating probably more than a 
million dollars a year — and almost all of this because 
Sandy Hook interferes with the open navigation of the 
lower bay. 

But topographic forms, as well as coast outlines, play 
a very important part in the activities of life ; and even 
distance above sea level is an important factor, though 
perhaps indirectly. Thus, a comparatively small frac- 
tion of the world's population lives at an altitude 
greater than seven or eight hundred feet above mean 
tide. Now the difference between the climatic condi- 
tions of the five hundred and the two thousand foot 
contour is so slight that it cuts practically no figure at 
all. The difference in the conditions of soil, however, 
is very great. 

A thick layer of level soil, it is apparent, is the most 
favorable condition for the support of life ; and inas- 
much as physical life gets its nutrition mainly from the 
soil, life can be nourished best where, along with proper 
conditions of climate, there is the best soil. 

The relative value of highlands and lowlands is well 
illustrated in the case of the New England Plateau. 
During the past jEifty years there has been but little 
gain in the population of the uplands ; in many places 
the population has decreased, and the productivity has 



EFFECTS OF TOPOGRAPHY 89 

retrograded. In the lowlands, on the contrary, there 
has been a steady increase in the number of people. 
The value of farming lands in the upland region has 
gone steadily downward, while in the valley lands it 
has materially increased. 

Aside from the question of fertility, the rugged sur- 
face of most highland regions is unfavorable to the 
activities of life. Free commercial intercourse is one 
of the essentials of modern civilization ; the high 
ranges and deep canons are, therefore, great barriers 
to commerce. The steep escarpments of the Rocky 
Mountains and the ravines that have dissected the 
plateaus are so formidable to commerce that freight 
can be shipped around Cape Horn, a distance of six- 
teen thousand miles, for a much lower rate than that 
across the one thousand miles of western highland. 

The Balkan ranges were so rugged that the Greek 
peoples found it easier to scatter along the Mediter- 
ranean coast and to cross the .^gean Sea. Either way 
was a line of less resistance than that imposed by 
the inhospitable ranges. The arid plateau of Iran 
and the lofty knot of the Hindu Kush have been an 
almost insurmountable barrier between Occidental and 
Oriental civilization ; and it is likely to exist until the 
railway shall thread its passes — just as it has broken 
down the barrier of the Alps or of the Andes. 

But the high range is sometimes more than a bar- 
rier to be surmounted by physical force ; it may be a 



90 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

climatic barrier. The range that faces an ocean wind 
chills its moisture, and a deluge of rain falls on the 
seaward side, while the opposite slopes are of necessity 
arid. So the life forms that require a great deal of 
moisture cannot survive, even if they are carried be- 
yond the summit ; while the species that thrive on the 
arid side find the conditions equally fatal to their exist- 
ence on the opposite slope. The flora of the western 
slopes of the Sierra Nevada is so different from that 
of the eastern side that at first sight the two seem to 
have nothing in common. Even the landscape forms 
are so unlike that they seem to belong to regions very 
remote, one from the other. The difference is even 
more noticeable in the Peruvian Andes, where the 
summit separates a region of the most profuse tropi- 
cal growths from hopeless desert waste. 

Notwithstanding the fact that rugged mountain re- 
gions are unfavorable to a concentration of population 
in most respects, they are essential to civilization in 
certain ways. The breaking and upturning of the 
rock folds have made accessible many of the minerals 
and metals of use in the arts and the industries of 
mankind. Gold and silver are essential to commerce, 
and for more than three thousand years they have been 
recognized by civilized man as the chief media of 
circulation. Indeed, until the bank and the clearing- 
house came to the front, they were the chief mechanism 
of exchange. But gold and silver almost always are 



EFFECTS OF TOPOGRAPHY 9 1 

products of mountain regions, and their deposition in 
veins is one result of the processes by which mountains 
were formed. Copper is mainly a product of mountain 
folds, and perhaps no other metal, save iron, holds so 
important a place. Because of its low resistance to 
the passage of electricity — silver alone surpassing it — 
copper is the one metal practically fit for the trans- 
mission of electric power. Indeed, the extension of 
the uses to which electric power may be applied is 
pretty closely governed by the price of copper. 

In most mountain regions, too, there are considerable 
areas that, although too rugged for cultivation, pro- 
duce enough grass to feed large herds of cattle and 
sheep. The dairy products of Switzerland, the beef 
product of the " Plains," the clips of llama wool from the 
Andes, and of "camel's hair" from the Asian plateaus, 
are results of the grazing industry in mountain slopes 
that otherwise would be unproductive. The rug-mak- 
ing industry that has made the plateaus of Armenia 
and Iran famous for more than three thousand years 
had its origin and development in just such conditions. 
Had the soil been highly cultivable and productive of 
great crops of food-stuffs, the rug-making industry would 
never have survived, even had it obtained a place. It 
is practically fixed there because of conditions of topog- 
raphy and climate. 

It is evident, therefore, that geographic conditions 
localize certain industries in mountainous regions that, 



92 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

from the very nature of the case, could not exist else- 
where. The population of these regions is sparse, 
partly because of the rugged character of the surface, 
but mainly from their low power in the production of 
the food-stuffs ; and in the main the products of these 
regions cannot be obtained elsewhere. Gold, silver, 
and copper, llama wool and rug stock, are found only 
where they are found, and the loci of production cannot 
be moved unless they are moved to regions having the 
same conditions of environment. 

Montane valleys, on the other hand, are apt to be 
important centres of population. The surface of the 
valley, usually a flood plain, is nearly always level, and 
the soil is deep. In fact, the level surface and deep 
soil are natural results of the movement of rock waste, 
no matter whether the filling material of the valley is 
an alluvial or a marine plain. The essential feature 
of nutrition is present, and for that reason there are 
the possibilities of a more or less dense population. 
The Sound, Willamette, and Sacramento-San Joaquin 
valleys are illustrations in point ; they represent the 
greater part of the natural wealth of the Pacific coast 
region of the United States. In the Appalachian and 
New England regions nearly all the cities of importance, 
the ports excepted, are situated in the montane valleys, 
and the same idea is borne out in the various Alpine 
valleys : in them is concentrated most of the wealth 
and the activities of the surrounding country. It is 



EFFECTS OF TOPOGRAPHY 93 

apparent in the great highland regions of Asia, where 
the vale of Kashmir has added its literature and history 
to the world ; indeed, the application of this principle 
of economy is so well-nigh universal that it scarcely 
needs more than a mere allusion. 

But if the valley has a high degree of importance, 
the pass, or transverse notch, across the range has a 
rank that is relatively higher in the scale. From the 
very fact that the mountain range is a barrier to inter- 
communication, it follows that almost all the intercourse 
of peoples on the opposite sides must be concentrated 
at the passes. Railway lines must of necessity seek 
the mountain passes. We see this in the traffic that 
finds its lines of least resistance over Mont Cenis, St. 
Gotthard, Brenner, Marshall, Fremont, Great South, 
Mohawk, and a great number of other passes and gaps. 

As an instance of the economic value of the pass, let 
us consider Mohawk Gap across the range that forms 
a part of the Appalachian folds. Up to the present 
time no topographic feature within the United States 
has had more to do with the development of the great 
industry of transportation than this. It has made 
New York the Empire State ; it took the commercial 
supremacy from Philadelphia and made New York 
harbor the centre of commerce of the New World ; 
and it is to-day the chief factor in regulating traffic 
rates between the East and the food-stuff markets of 
the Mississippi Basin. 



94 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

Within a very few years after our national history 
had begun it was discovered that the newly acquired 
territory of the Northwest was shut off from com- 
munication with the Atlantic ports because of the 
Appalachian Mountains. But two gateways at that 
time seemed available — one by way of Cumber- 
land Gap to Pittsburg, the other by way of the 
Hudson River and Mohawk Valley. The falls and 
rapids between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario inter- 
cepted navigation to the eastward, and so the site 
of Buffalo became a natural focus of trade in just 
the same manner that Pittsburg, at the head of navi- 
gation of the Ohio, had also become a great market. 

At that time the railway was scarcely more than 
a visionary dream, and a canal seemed the only way 
of opening traffic communication between the two 
parts of the country. Work on the Cumberland and 
Ohio Canal was begun, but the canal was never com- 
pleted. The Erie Canal quickly materialized and 
became a great highway of commerce. With the 
opening of the canal two things were accomplished. 
First, the produce of the western part of the state 
found a ready market ; second, the vessels from for- 
eign ports, which previously had been compelled to 
wait a long time for return cargoes — in many cases 
going back in ballast — found Httle or no difficulty in 
getting them without delay. As a result, little by 
little shipping began to leave Philadelphia, and only 



EFFECTS OF TOPOGRAPHY 95 

a few years elapsed until New York City became the 
metropolis of the continent. In this, as in other 
cases, man was a potent factor, but in this instance 
his chief work was in taking advantage of geographic 
conditions. 

In recent years, the six railway tracks that follow 
this natural route have absorbed most of the traffic 
between Chicago and New York, yet the canal it- 
self is still a route of traffic. Freight going from 
Chicago to New York along the shores of Lake 
Erie and the Hudson is lifted less than one thou- 
sand feet. Over other competing lines the lift aggre- 
gates not far from four thousand feet. Over this line 
a locomotive of the type now in use will easily haul 
a train of ninety cars, each loaded with sixty thou- 
sand pounds of freight, or one of one hundred and 
twenty-five empty cars. Over most of the other 
roads the grades are so steep that freight trains 
must be broken into two, three, and even four sec- 
tions, each requiring two locomotives for the steeper 
grades. Under the circumstances, then, it is hardly 
a matter of surprise that the route of the Erie Canal 
practically fixes the rates of freight traffic between 
New York and a very large part of the West. 

Instances similar in character could be added 
almost without number. Khaibar Pass, one of the 
few narrow defiles through the rugged, desert high- 
land that separates the Europe of history from the 



96 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

Asia of history, is an example. The British govern- 
ment has long recognized it as the key of the gate- 
way to India; and should it ever pass into the hands 
of the Russians, Great Britain's grip on her Asiatic 
possessions will become very uncertain. In the South 
African war that so thoroughly shook the British 
Empire to its foundation stones, the chief struggle 
centred about the pass that was a doorway between 
Natal and the Boer republic. In the various colonial 
wars in America almost always there was fierce fight- 
ing about Fort Ticonderoga and Crown Point, from 
the fact that these were strategic points guarding the 
easy passage between Canada and the Hudson River 
Valley ; and, indeed, this entire thalweg is nothing 
more nor less than a pass between the St. Lawrence 
and New York Bay. 

The river and the physiographic features connected 
with it are potent factors in the concentration and 
distribution of life and its activities. The navigable 
river is an open highway free to all, and when we 
consider a stream like the Mississippi and its tribu- 
taries, with about fifteen thousand miles of navigable 
waters, we may well ponder on its inestimable value 
to the nation. Pittsburg and Fort Benton are nearly 
two thousand miles apart, as the crow flies, but both 
may be reached from New Orleans. Fort Benton is 
only three hundred miles from Lewiston, a river port 
on a tributary of the Columbia. When the people of 



EFFECTS OF TOPOGRAPHY 97 

the United States are ready to put one-tenth of the 
energy into the building of canals and the improve- 
ment of waterways that has been devoted to the rail- 
way, there will be an evolution of internal navigation 
the like of which does not exist anywhere else on 
the face of the earth. 

In the settlement and development of new nations 
the rivers have usually been the pioneer routes of 
transportation. A good steamboat may be built for 
less than thirty thousand dollars, and this sum is 
about half the cost of an ordinary train of cars. 
The river costs nothing ; the railway, with its equip- 
ment, at the minimum of cost, represents an expendi- 
ture of forty thousand dollars per mile. 

The river valley may be regarded as a type of pass, 
inasmuch as it is a line of least resistance to commercial 
intercourse. In rugged countries almost all the railway 
lines are built along river valleys. The flood plain of 
the river is a natural railway bed, and there is not a 
line reaching New York City from the west that does 
not utilize stream valleys for the greater part of its 
extent. The same is true of the railways of the western 
highlands. 

The river valleys of Siberia have been important 
factors in the spreading of Sclavonic civilization. The 
master streams of Siberia flowing mainly into the Arctic 
Ocean have but little importance as traffic highways. 
The lateral tributaries, however, are very fortunately 



98 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

situated. The passage down a tributary to the master 
stream and up the tributary on the opposite side is an 
easy one. The portage across the divide to a tributary 
of the next master stream does not present great diffi- 
culties ; and so from basin to basin across the great 
plain from east to west, from Moscow to the head of the 
Amur, the several river valleys constitute lines of least 
resistance. The place of these in Russian history 
becomes evident when one studies a map showing 
the distribution of Sclavonic peoples. Such a map 
shows narrow belts of settlement in parallel lines, the 
one Sclavonic, the other Turanic ; the former along the 
valleys of the tributaries, the latter occupying the more 
inaccessible lands between them. 

The bottom lands, or flood plains of rivers, hold also 
a most important place in the economic history of a 
country. To the very highest degree the energies of 
nature have sorted, distributed, and arranged the ever 
moving rock waste so that it presents the maximum of 
adaptability to the requirements of life. Except in rare 
instances, the flood plain possesses the greatest fertility 
and the least resistance to the activities of life. There- 
fore they are almost always densely peopled. The flood 
plain of the Nile sums up about all there is to the 
Egypt of history. It probably gave to Aryan peoples 
the alphabet now used by most of the civilized nations 
of the world, and certainly it has shaped the destinies of 
at least one great Semitic family. The Egypt of geog- 



EFFECTS OF TOPOGRAPHY 99 

raphy is a very broad and a somewhat vaguely bounded 
area ; the Egypt of history is the narrow strip made by 
the overflowing waters of the Nile. 

The growth and development of Chile is another 
illustration of the value of flood plains. Most of the 
northern part of this state is a hopeless desert. There 
are fine grazing lands in the mountains, it is true, but 
the lower lands are habitable only in the irrigated flood 
plains of the short Andine streams. Each one of these 
is densely peopled and the centre of great activities ; 
the mesa lands between are incapable of supporting 
anything more than the lower forms of life, and but 
very few of these. 

Even in places where the flood plain may be flanked 
by level and fertile lands, the greater productivity of the 
flood plain is nearly always emphasized. Thus, in the 
northern part of the Great Central Plain, the prairie 
lands yield not far from twenty bushels of wheat to the 
acre ; the bottom lands yield about thirty. Farther 
south, an acre of bluff land produces scarcely more 
than one bale of cotton ; an acre of bottom lands 
will produce nearly twice as much. 

As a resum6 of the foregoing paragraphs, it may be 
said that topographic forms, both horizontal and vertical, 
very largely govern the various activities of life, and 
that in very many ways national history has been 
shaped by them. In an essay remarkable for the clear- 
ness and force of its arguments, Professor Rossiter 
LofC. 



lOO THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

Johnson has shown that the partition and absorption of 
Poland was a foregone conclusion, and that from a 
geographic standpoint there was scarcely an excuse 
for the existence of Poland as a nation. That this view 
is a correct one cannot be doubted, for neither to the 
north, the south, the east, nor the west was there a 
topographic barrier between that separated it from the 
surrounding nations. In the partition of the country, 
therefore, each part went to the country to which it 
geographically belonged. 



CHAPTER VI 

The Effects of Topography and Climate on the 
Economic History of the United States 

In the development of the affairs of a nation two 
processes are usually going on ; namely, the acquisi- 
tion of territory, and the subsequent adjustment of 
the people to their local surroundings — that is, to 
their geographic environment. In most instances the 
process of adjustment is slow, and nearly always it is 
accompanied with more or less friction. Now this 
aspect of national development is an exceedingly 
important one, for the friction and difficulties that 
attend the adaptation of a people to their surround- 
ings go a long way in making their history. More- 
over, the sooner a people realize the fact that their 
economies and activities are largely controlled by 
geographic environment, that is, by conditions of 
topography and climate, the more quickly will dis- 
cord and adversity give way to harmony and pros- 
perity. 

In various ways one may note the operation of 
these processes in our own country from the very 
earliest colonial periods. The Virginians, for instance, 
adapted their employments to the conditions they 

lOI 



102 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

found. Soil, climate, and topography were all splen- 
didly adapted to the prosecution of a new industry, 
tobacco growing, and as a result there was but little 
friction until the greed of the English merchants 
practically destroyed the industry and drove the 
Virginians into the revolutionary party that was grow- 
ing and taking shape in the Northern colonies. So 
far as Virginia was concerned, therefore, the war of 
the Revolution had as much the character of an indus- 
trial as a political revolution. 

In the case of the New England colonies, how- 
ever, one may readily find an abundant evidence of 
the friction that entered into its history. For nearly 
one hundred years the people struggled along, seem- 
ingly unable to discover that the greater part of the 
land was thoroughly unfit for agriculture and, during 
all this time, crops of glacial boulders alternated with 
crops of trouble. 

The first material readjustment of this condition of 
affairs was an industrial revolution, and its exciting 
cause was a matter of topographic detail — a question 
of geography, pure and simple. The rugged surface 
of that region, dipping abruptly below the line of sea 
level, gives the coast that indented and fjorded line 
that makes the best of natural harbors. Farther 
south, from Chesapeake Bay to the Gulf of Mexico, 
a level coast plain dips so gently below sea level that 
a vessel cannot approach the shore unless some buried 



ECONOMIC HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 103 

river channel of former geological times affords a 
navigable way ; even then a long line of spits, hooks, 
and barrier beaches may block the few navigable 
estuaries. As a result of these topographic condi- 
tions, the great industry of sea commerce was con- 
centrated at the natural harbors of the New England 
shores. 

And when the New Englanders began to recognize 
these conditions, poverty and adversity began to give 
way to prosperity. Even the wretched and disgust- 
ing theological bickerings began to be dropped ; for a 
people who are thrifty and prosperous have but little 
time for quarrels. Because of the geographic condi- 
tions noted, commercial interests began to dominate, 
and these were materially aided by another geo- 
graphic factor — namely, the great belt of white pine 
just back of the coast. Pines thrive best in a coarse, 
gravelly soil where there are extremes of climate. 
And, in the case in question, the glacial drift fur- 
nished the rocky soil, while a moderately high latitude 
afforded the conditions of climate. Now, as a matter 
of fact, no other timber that grows surpasses white 
pine for the construction of vessels ; and so the 
New Englanders began to make the ships that sailed 
out of their harbors. The close of the war of the 
Revolution marked the beginning of a new industrial 
epoch founded upon the wisest of principles because 
in harmony with geographic environment; and the 



104 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

commerce of the sea grew by rapid strides until the 
canvas of the new merchant marine whitened every sea 
under the sun. 

The traditional cow that kicks over her bucket of milk 
is not only ubiquitous, but she exists in about every 
department of life. She was very much in evidence 
in the political issues that led to the War of 1812, 
and never was the bucket more effectively overturned 
than at this time. With a single stroke of the pen the 
magnificent fleet of merchant marine was swept off 
the sea and practically disappeared from view. So 
far as the New England states were concerned, it 
was not to revive ; for when those ports were again 
open to foreign trade, only a few years were to elapse 
until hulls of steel propelled by steam should take the 
place of sailing vessels. Even at the end of the nine- 
teenth century, ninety per cent of our foreign traffic 
was carried by foreign vessels. 

The embargo of 1807, together with the non-inter- 
course and non-importation acts, no matter how wise 
the effect intended, proved a clear case of biting off 
our national nose to spite the national face. The 
industrial chaos resulting scarcely can be imagined. 
The millions of dollars that had been actively em- 
ployed in foreign trade were thrown into idleness, 
and a stagnation of business followed. There was 
one hopeful feature, and one feature of momentous 
importance resulting, however. Up to the time of 



ECONOMIC HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 105 

the various enactments leading to non-intercourse, 
pretty nearly all the manufactured articles used in 
this country were imported ; indeed, under colonial 
rule, the manufacture of certain goods in the colo- 
nies, or even the importation of the machinery for 
making them, was an offence punishable by imprison- 
ment. But when the effects of the embargo began 
to settle upon the country, the necessity of home 
manufacture forced itself in no gentle manner on 
about every community. And here a geographic 
factor began to obtrude itself. In spite of its now 
illogical name, manufacture required something more 
than the energy of hand and brain, and that some- 
thing was power. At this time steam had scarcely 
become a factor in the economic development of the 
nation ; about all the power utilized came from fall- 
ing water. But water power depends on an abrupt 
slope, and the New England Plateau possesses this 
feature in a remarkable degree. As a result, the 
capital that had been forced out of its former employ- 
ment was reinvested in mills and factories. It is 
characteristic of the streams of this region that nearly 
level reaches of water alternate with abrupt slopes, 
and so comparatively long stretches of almost slack 
water are relieved by rapids and cascades. In other 
words, the utilization of water power for manufacture 
depends upon certain topographic conditions, and these 
were available to the highest degree in the New Eng- 



I06 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

land Plateau. They existed elsewhere, — in the south- 
ern Appalachians as well, — but in the New England 
states there was the stimulus of idle capital. Still, 
not a little enterprise developed in the Southern 
states. In general, a wave of manufacturing impulse 
swept over the country, and companies for the pro- 
duction of textiles were organized, not only in the 
New England states, but in Charleston, Richmond, 
Baltimore, and Philadelphia. The fad for homespun 
and home-made textiles grew to be a craze. All 
sorts of clubs and associations were formed for the 
purpose of fostering the new industry, and the ques- 
tion became a burning issue in politics. In North 
Carolina, Vermont, Maryland, Ohio, Kentucky, Con- 
necticut, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, the members of 
the various legislative bodies were urged either by 
enactment or by public opinion to appear in gar- 
ments of home-made material. Industrial parades 
and expositions were held, and the newspapers were 
plethoric with leaders that boomed the superiority of 
American products, or, perhaps, with dire threats lev- 
elled at the American woman who should refuse to 
discard the tawdry trappings of European manufac- 
ture for the home-made products. 

The importation of merino sheep was the beginning 
of an important era in the manufacture of textiles. 
Napoleon's invasion of Spain was followed by the 
confiscation of many estates, and the famous flocks 



ECONOMIC HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 10/ 

of merinos, in many instances, were transferred to 
American soil. For a time our consuls employed 
themselves with little else than buying fine sheep, 
and very soon the sheep ranges extended from the 
White Mountains to Pamlico Sound, and the water 
power of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island 
became the centre of a great woollen textile industry. 
But the manufacturing enterprises were not confined 
to textiles alone, they grew to include about every- 
thing the people needed. There was but a single 
important exception to the new era of prosperity — 
namely, the cordwainers and rope-makers ; their trade 
was gone forever, for there were no vessels to be 
supplied with rigging in the future. 

But the great change in the industries of a people 
was made ; the idle capital was again employed, and 
the prosecution of the new industry was in harmony 
with the conditions imposed by geographic environ- 
ment. The change of employment brought new and 
different social conditions. The complications pre- 
ceding the War of 1812, therefore, resulted in an 
industrial revolution, and, in general, it placed a large 
population on a plane of civilization that was distinc- 
tively higher. Granted that the destruction of com- 
merce was wrought in a manner at once bungling, 
unstatesmanlike, and cruel ; admitting that greed, ava- 
rice, and lust were underlying factors — the general 
results were beneficial. One can get a grain of com- 



I08 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

fort, however, in the fact that most revolutions have 
gone that same way. 

By turning back the pages of the economic history 
of our country, we cannot escape the fact that each 
of our forward leaps has resulted from an industrial 
revolution, and that not until our industries were 
founded and built up so as to be in harmony with 
the conditions of their environment, could any great 
amount of prosperity ensue. The state groups that 
so long have held their places on the map of the 
United States are founded on something more than 
convenience and political gerrymandering ; their basis 
is an economic one, and is founded on geographic 
laws. If, for instance, we take the New England 
Plateau, we find there a centre of light manufactures 
of a character that requires the highest degree of 
intellectual and mechanical skill. Doubtless some of 
these might thrive elsewhere ; certainly the manu- 
facture of cotton textiles could be more economically 
carried on in the South, for in no other way can the 
cost of transporting the cotton from the fields to the 
far-distant mills be eliminated. Originally located in 
this region because of the water power, the manu- 
facturers have remained there because a highly edu- 
cated people is able to take advantage of public 
demands and to seize the opportunities presented. 

In the middle and southern Appalachian region we 
find still another sort of manufacturing enterprise ; 



ECONOMIC HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES lOQ 

namely, the making of structural steel, and this 
industry has also a geographic basis. Before the pig 
iron can be converted into steel, and the latter rolled 
out into rails, girders, plates, and billets, several tons 
of coal must be used for every ton of metal produced. 
It is cheaper, therefore, to ship the iron ore to the 
coal than vice versa, and for this reason the great 
centre of manufacture of structural iron and steel 
must be either in or near the coal mines. Granted 
that other manufacturing enterprises exist in the vicin- 
ity of the coal measures, and that certain agricultural 
products are grown, it becomes apparent with a 
moment's thought that the manufacture of iron and 
steel will always be the fundamental industry of this 
region. Even taking into consideration the high 
wages paid for labor as compared with those paid in 
Europe, the price of steel billets and rails at times 
is materially lower here than abroad. 

In the localization of the iron and steel industry, 
geographic environment, it has been shown, has been 
the dominant factor, and this is strongly illustrated 
in the establishment of the steel-making centre along 
the shores of the Great Lakes. Among the chief 
expenses in the manufacture of pig iron are the 
quarrying of the ore and the transportation of the 
product. If, in one locality, a given amount of labor 
will quarry a ton of ore while in another it will pro- 
duce six or eight tons, there is no question about 



no THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

which miner can afford to sell his product at the 
lower price. And if one operator can load his ore 
on barges, while another must haul by rail the same 
distance, there is also no doubt about which can sell 
the ore for the lower price ; for the cost of getting 
the ore to the smelteries is practically the cost of 
labor and transportation. 

Now among the older rocks that border Lake 
Superior are vast deposits of good iron ore so near 
the lake shore that the ore can be quarried and trans- 
ferred to the hold of the vessel for a very small sum 
per ton ; indeed, in places it may almost be blasted 
from the quarry into the barge. Transportation by 
water to the shore of Lake Michigan or that of 
Lake Erie is a small item compared with the cost 
of railroading the ore, and so the latter is conveyed 
to its destination by freight steamships and barges. 
At the lower lake shore it meets the coal brought 
by canal barges from the interior, and, as a result, 
enormous steel-making plants have grown up where 
the "lines of least resistance" meet, — Chicago, Toledo, 
Cleveland, Lorain, and Buffalo, Because of the devel- 
opment of a new line of industries, a new social econ- 
omy has resulted, and this, as one cannot help seeing, 
is an echo of geographic conditions. In other words, 
the man is adapting himself to his environment. 

The adjustment of the industries of the Great Cen- 
tral Plain affords another striking example of Indus- 



ECONOMIC HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES III 

trial development as governed by environment. From 
a topographic aspect this plain from the Great Lakes to 
the Gulf is marked by monotony of detail — open prai- 
ries alternating with occasional timbered areas. From 
an industrial and social standpoint, however, the north- 
ern and southern sections could not have been more 
unlike had the barrier between them consisted of a 
thousand miles of rugged mountains. At first the bar- 
rier was an imaginary line that extended along the 
thalweg of the Potomac and Ohio rivers ; afterward it 
became a very ugly fiat line that was fixed at the 
parallel of 36° 30'; in time it became an embattlement 
that separated two hostile camps. 

And yet it was merely a climatic boundary after all — 
a line north of which cotton would not grow, and south 
of which wheat would not pay. In other words, 
there were two industrial regions with a geographic 
barrier between them ; and for a long time the people 
were unable to adjust themselves to their environment 
and at the same time rise superior to it. 

The southern part of the Great Central Plain was 
the first to be developed. Its period began just after 
the war of the Revolution, and the stimulating cause, 
strangely, was the invention of the steam engine in 
England. When the application of steam as a motive 
power had passed the experimental stage, the English 
textile manufacturers found themselves with a new 
power of unlimited extent, and practically with no work 



112 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

for it. But John Bull is very long-headed and very 
practical : he simply transferred the cotton industry 
from Hindustan to England, putting the mills in Man- 
chester and the cotton fields in the Southern states. 

For a while the cotton grower was hampered by 
the fact that the Hindu coolie was paid a daily wages 
varying from two to five cents a day — the latter sum 
for the skilled weavers and spinners, the former for 
the field hands. In order to obviate this difficulty 
brain had to be pitted against brawn, and Eli Whitney 
invented the cotton engine or gin, which, in sepa- 
rating the furze, or fibre, from the seeds, did the work 
several hundred times as rapidly as it can be done 
by hand. 

The cotton grower was handicapped also by the 
question of labor. Not only were the social condi- 
tions in the South unsuited to the white laborer, but 
the latter was physically unequal to the work de- 
manded in the cotton fields. As a result, the African 
slaves that had been employed impartially throughout 
the country, both North and South, were gradually 
drawn to the South ; they could stand the hot and 
moist climate, and they were adapted to the labor. 
The question of the relative cost of slave and free 
labor was one that the cotton grower settled to his 
own satisfaction, and in less than thirty-five years the 
Southern states produced more than two-thirds of 
the world's cotton crop ; at present it produces nearly 



ECONOMIC HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES II3 

four-fifths. The chief mistake that the cotton grower 
made was the adoption of a pohcy which permitted 
the manufacture of his product to go elsewhere. It 
was practically the planter and not the manufacturer 
who paid freight on the raw product from the fields 
to the factory. It was the planter, too, who failed 
to get the profits that would have accrued had the 
manufacturing establishments been placed in the vicin- 
ity of the cotton fields. The planter, therefore, was 
at the mercy of the outside man, and the latter was 
not always altruistic enough to consult the interests of 
the former. So it turned out that the English manu- 
facturer helped himself to the first profits, while the 
New England cotton factor got most of the remainder. 
The Civil War, one of the results of which was the 
establishment of cotton manufacturing plants all along 
the Fall Line and in the vicinity of the cotton fields, 
worked an industrial revolution in the South, and the 
iron and steel making which grew with rapid strides 
in the southern Appalachians finally put this whole 
region on an industrial basis that was more closely in 
harmony with its geographic environment than ever 
before. 

In the North Central states agriculture has always 
been the dominant industry, and whatever manu- 
factures may have developed, they have been usually 
correlated to the handling and the harvesting of the 
crop of food-stuffs. The completion of the Erie 



114 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

Canal opened communication between the West and 
the East, giving these states an outlet to tide water — 
an outlet subsequently enlarged by the various trunk 
lines of railway. With a commercial outlet assured 
there was a marvellous growth of population, and at 
the close of the present century this region has be- 
come probably the greatest centre for the production 
of food-stuffs in the world. Nearly one-fourth of the 
wheat and meat, and about three-fourths of the Indian 
corn consumed in the world, are produced there. 

The movement of the wheat-growing and flour- 
making industry to the Northern states of the Great 
Central Plain has been followed by very far-reaching 
changes. So long as the wheat was grown in the 
hilly farms of New England, the old-fashioned cradle 
and the hand flail were about all that were required 
to harvest and prepare the crop for market ; indeed, 
the rugged surface practically forbade the use of such 
machinery as is now employed. 

When, however, the wheat crop was garnered on 
the fertile prairies of the West, the cradle gave way 
to the reaper, the reaper to the self-binder, and the 
latter to the header, or to the mammoth harvester 
that cuts a swath fifty feet in width, at the same 
time threshing and sacking the grain. The hand 
flail dropped out of sight, and the steam thresher, 
that separates and cleanses twenty-five hundred sacks 
a day, took its place. In the flour mills the old chan- 



ECONOMIC HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES I15 

nelled millstones were too slow, and the roller pro- 
cess of making flour took its place. In order to get 
the farm products to the densely peopled manufactur- 
ing and commercial centres of the East, trunk lines 
of railway were organized from the short end-to-end 
roads ; iron rails gave place to steel rails, weighing 
three or four times as much ; and the automatic 
brake, that puts the train under perfect control at 
the touch of a valve, took the place of the cumber- 
some and uncertain hand brake. The locomotive 
formerly employed weighed from twenty to thirty 
tons, and carried steam at a pressure of sixty pounds ; 
it could haul not more than forty or fifty loaded cars 
on a level. The modern freight locomotive weighs 
from sixty to one hundred tons, and with its steel 
boiler that carries steam at one hundred and sixty 
pounds, hauls ninety freight cars, each loaded with 
sixty thousand pounds of freight. 

The result of this enormous development and locali- 
zation of the growing of food-stuffs has been not only 
a commercial but a social revolution as well. The 
establishment of the cotton fields and of various tex- 
tile factories in the United States reduced the price 
of prints and domestics from about thirty cents a yard 
to less than five ; the concentration of wheat-growing 
in the prairie states brought the price of flour from 
about twelve dollars a barrel to less than five. Per- 
haps the living expenses of a family might not have 



Il6 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

been materially less, but under the changed condi- 
tions they lived much better on the same amount of 
money ; ^ in other words, the plane of civilization was 
higher than before. And the conditions were wholly 
geographic in character. 

The region at the eastern base of the Rocky Moun- 
tains, commonly known as the " Plains," is another 
example of the effects of environment on industrial 
development. So far as topography is concerned, the 
region in question, which extends westerly from the 
twenty-five hundred foot contour above sea level, 
belongs to the Great Central Plain. The barrier that 
separates it from the more fertile prairie lands is one 
strictly of climate. West of the twenty-five hundred 
foot contour the rainfall, both in quantity and period 
of distribution, is insufficient to produce more than 
two or three crops of grain in every five. Only 
along the narrow flood plains of the rivers are crops 
certain, and these, at times, must depend on irrigation. 

The close of the Civil War gave an impetus to the 
settlement of this section, and for nearly a genera- 
tion the people struggled against a fate which was 
inevitable. Blindly ignorant of what ought to be 
apparent, they dragged out an existence or starved. 

1 According to the statistics gathered by Mr. Edward Atkinson, the 
purchasing power of the wages of the day laborer has been increased 
more than eighty-five per cent. The cost of transporting a bushel of 
wheat from Chicago to New York, in 1868, was 42.6 cents; in 1900 it is 
less than fourteen cents by rail, and about six cents by water. 



ECONOMIC HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 11/ 

Finally there came a time when the grain farms were 
abandoned for stock-growing, and then adversity dis- 
appeared and prosperity came. 

The reason why stock-growing succeeded seems 
paradoxical when one studies the details. It is a for- 
tunate thing that turf grass will not grow to any 
extent in this region, while the coarse, wiry, and less 
nutritious bunch grass thrives ; and here is the para- 
dox. By the middle of June practically all the grass 
on the ranges turns brown, the aerial growth perish- 
ing for want of moisture. Now the mere change of 
color does not materially affect the nutrient qualities 
of the grass ; but while a single shower will leach 
all the nutrition from turf grass, the dry bunch grass 
will stand a considerable wetting ; and even after the 
snows of winter have fallen, it is still good fodder. 
And so, because the bunch grass retains its nutrition 
throughout the fall and winter in lands that are too 
arid to produce grain or turf grass, the region in 
question has become an area adapted to grazing — in 
other words, an industrial enterprise, founded upon 
conditions of geographic environment, has developed 
and prospered. 

The western highland constitutes a region per se. 
For the greater part there is not sufficient moisture 
for the growth of food-stuffs ; only along the occa- 
sional flood plains of the mountain streams is there 
an attempt at farming. In the northern part there 



Il8 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

are a few cattle ranges ; in the southern part much 
of the country is an absokite desert. Yet, as a whole, 
the region is an indispensable part of the nation. It 
produces gold and silver, the medium of circulation 
required in commerce, and copper, the one thing 
essential for the transmission of electric power. The 
rugged, broken folds and tilted blocks of strata, 
seamed everywhere by deep canons, are a great det- 
riment to transportation, and therefore to commerce ; 
but those same denuded rock folds have laid bare 
the veins in which the precious metals were deposited. 
Mining is, therefore, the dominant industry of the 
region, and, as is evident, the reason is geographic. 

The Pacific states also constitute an industrial 
region that is peculiar to itself. All that part of the 
United States west of the crest of the Cascade and 
Sierra Nevada mountains is popularly, but not quite 
accurately, known as the " Pacific Slope," and the 
barrier that separates it from the region to the east- 
ward is one of climate. The rains are seasonal, little 
or no moisture falling from May to November.^ 

The temperature of winter, moreover, is not very 
much lower than that of summer : in the southern 
part freezing weather is almost unknown ; in the 

^ The amount and the time of distribution depend on the latitude. In 
Sitka, Alaska, rains may be expected during ten months of the year, July 
and August being the exceptions. In San Diego the occasional showers 
between November and April rarely aggregate more than eleven inches of 
rain; to the southward it is still less. 



ECONOMIC HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 119 

northern valleys it is not very common. Because of 
these climatic features, semi-tropical products give a 
peculiar importance to the region, and although wheat 
is by far the most valuable crop, the wine, citrus fruit, 
and merino wool make it an industrial region unlike 
any other in the country. At one time the Pacific 
Slope was the great centre of placer gold-mining, but 
it required only a brief time to demonstrate that the 
cultivation of wheat, wool, and semi-tropical products 
could be made far more remunerative ; and so the 
people quickly adapted themselves to the better con- 
ditions imposed by geographic environment. From 
this time there began the period of prosperity that 
has few equals. 



CHAPTER VII 

The Emphasis of Essentials 

Probably most of the difficulties that beset the 
teacher of geography culminate at the recitation. 
Not only are there perplexities concerning the treat- 
ment of the subject-matter, but one cannot always de- 
cide upon the proper application of the material used. 
No one would endeavor to place equal stress upon all 
the topics and illustrations of the text-book ; so it falls 
to the teacher not only to select the topics and arrange 
their- sequence, but also to give them their proper 
■emphasis. 

The best-balanced courses of study used in Ameri- 
can schools cover seven or eight years, of which all 
but the first three include the use of text-books — 
some courses with and others without supplementary 
reading. But no matter what the course may be, the 
recitation is always the focal point, and almost always 
the teacher's capability is judged by the results of the 
recitation period. Perhaps there is no other part of 
the work that requires greater skill and judgment than 
that displayed in the logical treatment of the course 
of study. 

There is no course of study so good that the class 



THE EMPHASIS OF ESSENTIALS 121 

teacher could not better it, so far as individual use is 
concerned. The first thing, therefore, is to organize 
within the prescribed course an individual course that 
will cover all its requirements. To do this requires 
experience and judgment, both of which the teacher 
is expected to possess. The individual course must 
have unity ; it must be so designed that the pupils 
will discern the logical connection and relation of the 
topics of each subject ; it must likewise have a definite 
end in view, so that the daily work may not be aimless. 
It is not necessary, nor is it usually advisable, to follow 
slavishly the sequence of lessons as they are arranged 
in the text-book. 

About the first thing a pupil, for the first time using 
a text-book, must learn is the art of studying from a 
book. This may seem easy, but it is not. At first 
nearly all the energy is spent in spelling and pro- 
nouncing words ; and until this is done unconsciously 
the thought contained in the text does not appear. 
In the experience of nearly every teacher pupils ten 
and twelve years of age will listen with attention and 
delight to such literature as " Hiawatha," or Irving's 
tales, or even to heavier reading such as McMaster's 
larger " History of the United States " ; yet when the 
children themselves attempt to read these works, the 
result is apt to be failure. Of course, in such cases, 
there is but one thing to do ; namely, to teach the 
pupils how to get the thought from the text. In other 



122 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

words, the training must be such that the mechanical 
part of reading is done unconsciously. In order to 
accomplish this the recitation at first must be made a 
study exercise, in which the pupils must be taught how 
to get intelligent thought from the printed page. 

There is still another important point that makes 
the work of the intermediate grades in geography dif- 
ficult and trying to the teacher. The mere acquisi- 
tion of a fact by the pupil scarcely can be called 
knowledge ; at the best, it is a very empiric stage of 
knowledge. The more important step is to so work 
upon this fact that by experience and association it 
develops into actual knowledge. This also requires 
skill and judgment on the part of the teacher — and, 
incidentally, these attributes ought to be expected of 
every instructor. 

Perhaps most of the memory tasks that form a 
part of the school work in geography are accom- 
plished in the intermediate years of the course, as a 
rule, while the pupil is studying the elementary text- 
book. A few well-meaning but misguided writers on 
educational topics pronounce such a proceeding atro- 
cious and cruel, but a moment's thought will sufBce 
to show that memory tasks can be more easily accom- 
plished between the ages of five and fourteen years 
than at any other time of life — far more easily than 
during the adult period. A certain amount of mem- 
ory work in geography is absolutely necessary — quite 



THE EMPHASIS OF ESSENTIALS 1 23 

as essential, in fact, as the learning of the various 
number combinations in arithmetic or the paradig- 
matic work in Latin. Geography deals with places, 
nations, terrestrial features, and processes ; and their 
names and character must be learned before one can 
well discuss their mutual relations. 

But judgment is certainly required in this matter; 
for instance, the text of the ordinary advanced geog- 
raphy contains about fifteen hundred geographic names, 
and the maps about five times as many in addition. 
As a matter of fact, the average man or woman of 
intelligence is rarely familiar with more than three or 
four hundred geographic names, even in a very gen- 
eral way. The average pupil on leaving the grammar 
school undoubtedly possesses a considerably larger 
stock — and promptly proceeds to forget all but about 
one hundred, or, possibly, half as many more. He 
then adds to his stock the names that may be called 
the "unexpected," that is, the names that come into 
use through discovery, political change, industrial 
movement, or change of environment. 

Now the selection of the places and geographic 
features to be remembered requires not a little dis- 
cretion on the part of the teacher. There are many 
names, with which the California pupil must be 
familiar, that deserve no place in the vocabulary of 
the New York pupil ; there are, moreover, names 
and localities necessary to the Philadelphia boy that 



124 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

have no place in the geography with which the pupils 
of Boston must be familiar. The teacher who pos- 
sesses the sort of knowledge that comes with expe- 
rience will be apt to exercise a great deal of care in 
this respect. Every teacher must learn by experi- 
ence that well-assimilated, actual knowledge about a 
few peoples or places is worth many times as much 
as a smattering of empiric knowledge about a great 
many — and it is all a matter of judgment. 

But the training which the pupil receives in the 
memory work, although it cannot anticipate the 
unexpected, nevertheless can provide for it in a way; 
that is, the teacher of ten years ago could not antici- 
pate what now is expected to be known about Klon- 
dike or Johannesburg or Manila or- Puerto Rico. 
Moreover, it would have been very foolish to add 
several thousand names to the pupil's geographic 
vocabulary in anticipation that some two or three 
of them might possibly grow into sudden importance. 
A wise teacher, however, will provide for just such 
possibilities by training the pupils into the cultivation 
of a proper and necessary habit. The geography of 
actual life is learned, not so much from text-books 
and cyclopaedias, as from current literature ; and this 
knowledge will become useful and valuable accord- 
ingly as it is made over from the empiric to the 
actual stage or not. That is, when a geographic 
name comes into prominence, if one immediately 



THE EMPHASIS OF ESSENTIALS 12$ 

refers first to the map to learn its position and gen- 
eral relations, and then to the cyclopaedia or gazet- 
teer for special facts, there will result more or less 
actual and practical knowledge. Evidently the chief 
task of the teacher is to train the pupil into this 
way of doing until it becomes a habit ; and it is well 
to bear in mind that for every time reason controls 
an action, habit controls it ten times. To train the 
pupil into the acquisition of such a habit should be, 
therefore, an explicit aim of the geography teacher. 
Next to the actual accomplishment of a given result 
the acquisition of the habits that will bring it about 
is the best legacy that the teacher can bequeath to 
a pupil. 

One of the most difficult matters upon which the 
teacher is called to exercise judgment is to deter- 
mine whether or not a given concept is within the 
mental grasp of the pupil. If the pupil does not un- 
derstand a given matter, there are the possibilities of 
explanation. Explanation may or may not bridge the 
difficulty ; it all depends on the teacher's skill. But if 
the pupil cannot understand the concept, why, he 
simply cannot ; specious illustrations done up in words 
of one syllable, or glossed over in short sentences, will 
not help the matter. Judgment suggests that the 
matter should be dropped until the pupil has reached 
the stage at which it can be understood. Perhaps a 
skilful disciplinarian may compel the memorization of 



126 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

words and phrases, but the most capable teacher that 
ever lived cannot force a pupil to understand what he 
cannot understand. It does not follow, however, that 
the fact itself should not be presented ; the latter may 
not only be simple, but it may be very essential. Thus 
the fact that when water vapor is sufficiently chilled it 
is condensed, is a very essential thing to know. It is a 
very simple fact, and one with which all pupils should 
be familiar. The explanation, however, is a very diffi- 
cult matter even for an adult mind to apprehend much 
less comprehend. 

And so with hundreds of other facts that come into 
the experience of one's life. It would be folly to 
attempt the explanation until the latter can be under- 
stood ; it would be manifestly unjust to withhold it after 
the pupil has become capable of grasping it. This, it 
may be claimed, is a matter of judgment on the teacher's 
part ; quite true, but judgment is supposed to be an 
equipment of the teacher. 

Another matter closely connected with the conduct 
of the recitation is the treatment of the definition. 
Almost always the consideration and discussion of a 
topic begins with the formal definition ; occasionally, 
too, it ends there. That the definition has an important 
place in the study of geography cannot be gainsaid ; 
still, in a way, the formal definition is not an essential. 
The perfect definition, like the geometric point or line 
or surface, or like the theoretical pendulum, exists more 



THE EMPHASIS OF ESSENTIALS 12/ 

in imagination than in fact. To cover every conceiv- 
able case the definition must be stated in the abstract, 
and in this care its meaning is not apt to be apparent. 
Thus, the legal definition of wound, as " solution of con- 
tinuity," would not appeal to any one who had not been 
trained in the law. The definition of network in John- 
son's Dictionary — " that which is reticulated and 
decussated with interstitial vacuities" — is equally 
valueless to one who is not an expert lexicographer. 
To be of value to an immature mind, the definition must 
possess something of the concrete ; and if it possesses 
concrete attributes, it ceases to be perfect, though un- 
doubtedly more useful. The idea of a hill as "a big 
heap of dirt " carries far more of meaning than when 
defined as " an accidental accumulation of detritus." 
As a condensed summary of information upon a given 
subject the definition may be a fairly good illustration 
of concise and exact expression, but as a vehicle to con- 
vey meaning to the pupil it has but little value. More- 
over, there are many words whose meanings are apparent, 
and yet not the most expert lexicographer can define 
them clearly and concisely. Nor yet does the ability to 
repeat the words of the definition necessarily imply an 
understanding of the thing. Sissy Jupe could not inform 
Messrs. Gradgrind and M'Choakumchild that a horse 
was "a-quadruped-gram n ivorous-forty-teeth-namely- 
twenty-four-grinders-four-eye-teeth-and-t w e 1 v e-incisive- 
sheds-coat-in-the-spring-in-marshy-countries-sheds-hoofs- 



128 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

too-hoofs-hard -b u t-r e q u i r i n g-t o-be-shod-vv^ith-iron-age- 
known-by-marks-in-the-moLith," but she probably knew 
the thing itself quite as well as the saleratus-faced 
Bitzer. And, on the other hand, the teacher must bear 
in mind the fact that geography and definitions need 
have but very little to do with each other. The pupil 
may know all about a thalweg, and not be able to define 
it ; or he may be able to reproduce a most critical defini- 
tion, and be totally devoid of any real knowledge of the 
term. 

With all due regard to the wisdom of our fore- 
fathers, whose legacy most geographic definitions are, 
it is not preposterous to claim that the latter are 
hardly suited to modern ideas of geography. A 
river, for instance, may be a stream of water flowing 
through the land, but this notion is its most superfi- 
cial aspect. From the economic standpoint the river 
does something more than merely to flow : it carves 
and carries away its basin, building fertile, food-pro- 
ducing plains of the material transported. Perhaps 
the teacher may still prefer the former idea, but the 
latter is the one that connects the river with the 
activities of life. 

The cape may be conventionally a point of land 
extending into the sea, but in its broader aspect it is 
an exposed point of the coast that affects commerce 
and navigation. Cape St. Roque, for instance, is not 
a " point of land extending into the sea " any more 



THE EMPHASIS OF ESSENTIALS 129 

than is the whole Iberian Peninsula, but it has a 
very definite place in the commerce of South Amer- 
ica. The extreme northern point of North America, 
however, answers to the definition of a cape, but for 
more than fourscore years since the time of its dis- 
covery it has had no name ; indeed, it has practically 
no place in the world's economies. PVom the physio- 
graphic aspect, the cape has but very little impor- 
tance; it may or may not possess economic importance, 
but if it does, the latter deserves the emphasis. 

A desert is not necessarily "a. vast, level plain of 
sand," nor, as one dictionary gives it, "a deserted or 
forsaken place." From a physiographic standpoint 
it is a region unproductive for want of moisture ; 
from an economic aspect it is a barrier to the distribu- 
tion of life — valueless because it will not support life. 
The desert may have any character of surface, and 
the alleged " sand " may be any kind of rock waste. 
Unproductivity and aridity are therefore the features 
to be emphasized, rather than levelness and sand. 

Ocean currents, especially such as the Gulf Stream 
and the Kuroshiwo, have no great modifying influ- 
ence on climate except in a very remote way. In 
this respect their effects are inconsiderable, and 
Western Europe could worry along very well without 
the Gulf Stream, so far as temperature is concerned. 
The drift from the Gulf Stream has a most important 
mission, however : it keeps the harbors of Western 



130 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

Europe free from ice all the winter, and, therefore, per- 
mits unchecked commercial intercourse. The shores 
of Western Europe form one of the great centres of 
the world's commerce ; the Labrador coast, with har- 
bors naturally quite as good, have no part in human 
activities. The former are always free from ice ; the 
latter are frozen half the year. And evidently the 
stress of emphasis is not the warming effect of 
the stream water, but the keeping of the shores free 
from ice. The great indentations of the coast cer- 
tainly have a modifying effect on the general climate 
of the coast, preventing both the intense cold of 
winter and the fierce heat of summer, as compared 
with regions more remote from the sea. 

In the discussijon of mountains, the range and not 
the peak should be the theme. Physiographically, 
the range is a much broken and worn fold of the 
rocks. From the economic aspect the emphasis may 
be placed upon the contents of the range — the 
minerals and metals valuable in the arts and sciences, 
if there be any — or else the effect of the range as 
a barrier to commerce and intercommunication. In 
the discussion of mountains two other features are 
intimately related — the valley and the pass. The 
former is almost always densely peopled ; the latter 
an important route of traffic ; and on these features 
the emphasis belongs. 

And so one might go through the entire list of geo- 



THE EMPHASIS OF ESSENTIALS 131 

graphic definitions, finding fault with each in an em- 
piric way. As a matter of fact, however, the geographic 
definition may have two aspects, one of which is abstract 
and technical, while the other expresses a relation to 
life and its activities. The former carries but little 
meaning to the child ; the latter, though imperfect, has 
a very definite educational value. One must bear in 
mind that the definition is not a part of the science of 
geography, but of language. It is the art of expression, 
and an art, moreover, that demands the highest degree 
of skill. In a way, the best definition is the one which 
the pupil himself constructs. Its value lies in the fact 
that the teacher may read between the lines to discover 
whether or not the pupil has the right idea — very 
crudely and bunglingly expressed, most likely, but 
fairly correct as to meaning. Nothing but experience 
and practice will bring accurate and concise expression, 
and one can scarcely expect either accuracy or concise- 
ness in immature minds. 

In dealing with the question of mathematical geogra- 
phy, it is a very easy matter to commit grievous errors 
of judgment. One may not always properly discrimi- 
nate between topics that are purely astronomical and 
those that have a very direct bearing on geography. For 
instance, such a problem as the calculation of the 
longest and the shortest days, that is, the periods of 
sunlight for the different latitudes, is both interesting 
and instructive in its proper place ; but it belongs to 



132 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

the Study of astronomy, and but remotely to that of 
geography. Just when and where it should be dis- 
cussed, depends on the judgment of the teacher. So, 
also, with such topics as the precession of the equinoxes ; 
the daily motion of heavenly bodies as seen at the poles, 
on the equator, and at mid-latitudes ; the approximate 
calculation of latitude, and similar questions : they have 
a definite place in the school curriculum, but they do 
not belong in the geography course of the grammar 
school. 

Nevertheless, there are certain facts in astronomy 
that the teacher should bring out, and they should be 
learned by observation. The pupil should be required 
to observe the position of the sun on the horizon, say, 
in June, December, and during one or two intermediate 
months ; he may also measure the noon shadow of some 
fixed object or other on the same dates. By means of 
these observations he learns the fact that the sun 
apparently swings north and south, making a complete 
oscillation once each year. Now it is necessary that 
the pupil should be in possession of this fact early 
in the study of geography, but it would be unwise to 
attempt an explanation of it until the teacher is satis- 
fied that it can be understood. The fact itself is 
needed ; the explanation is not required until the pupil 
engages the study of astronomical geography. 

The same idea comes up in a more practical way 
in the study of the light zones. The latter belong to 



THE EMPHASIS OF ESSENTIALS 1 33 

astronomical geography and should be studied in that 
connection, as resulting from the inclination of the 
axis together with its constant parallelism. At this 
period the explanation is necessary and proper ; before 
that time it is not. The fact itself is required in the 
study of the zones of climate, that is, the isothermal/ 
zones ; but in the study of the latter the wise teacher 
will omit all reference to inclination of the axis, tropi- 
cal circles, or polar circles. The fact that the heat 
belt oscillates north and south, thereby being a means 
for the distribution of heat, is the essential feature 
to make plain, and this part of the subject pertains to 
geography. The cause of the oscillation belongs to 
the science of astronomy, and its explanation is neither 
essential nor proper in the geography class. 

A more difficult matter is the selection of the mate- 
rial for the various grades — that is, what to take and 
what to omit. It goes without saying that no concept 
should be presented that the pupil cannot grasp. This, 
of course, would preclude any systematic study of 
mathematical or astronomical geography in the pri- 
mary and intermediate grades ; and it is certain that 
no systematic study of the subject should be attempted 
before the pupil reaches the high school. But it is 
equally certain that many principles of mathematical 
geography are required to be understood during the 
course of the intermediate and grammar grades. Thus, 
the succession of day and night has come into the 



134 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

experience of every mortal being ; and so far as the 
fact is concerned, it is learned long before the pupil 
begins his school course. By the time he is able to 
undertake the systematic work in the course, anyway 
not later than the fourth year, the explanation should 
be undertaken. All the principles involved may be 
learned by holding a small terrestrial globe in the 
proper position, so that the sunlight shall fall upon it. 
The words in italics are not for emphasis, but to indi- 
cate that the teacher has something to do, and that 
the success of the pupil's observational work depends 
largely on the teacher's skill in this particular. 

In the performance of this exercise several princi- 
ples in astronomical and mathematical geography are 
involved ; the succession of day and night are the 
result of rotation. Now rotation involves a knowledge 
of axis, and the last-named term of necessity carries 
with it probably the only new idea and new term ; 
namely, "pole": all the other principles, most likely, 
have come into the experience of the pupil. It would 
not be out of place or in bad form if another fact be 
taught at this time, and the term " equator " be added 
to the pupil's vocabulary. 

The construction of maps on scale has already been 
discussed, and with this branch of the laboratory work 
the elements of latitude and longitude may be learned. 
The first lessons most certainly should be studied from 
the globe ; from the latter the subject may be then 



THE EMPHASIS OF ESSENTIALS 1 35 

transferred to the map. From what has already been 
learned, there will be but little difficulty in understand- 
ing the general principles of latitude ; longitude will be 
rather more perplexing, because younger pupils cannot 
readily appreciate the importance of the prime merid- 
ian, much less understand the reason for its being 
where it is. 

The work in intermediate grades, therefore, would 
better be confined mainly to exercises in comparative 
latitudes. For instance, most of the great centres of 
activity in the world are situated very near to the forty- 
fifth parallel ; in the United States and Asia they are 
chiefly south, in Europe mainly north of it. This 
parallel being practically midway between the equator 
and the north pole, its number and position are easy 
to remember. The eighteenth parallel is also impor- 
tant, inasmuch as it touches or closely approaches all 
our recently acquired possessions. It is even worth 
while to know the important places crossed by the 
equator, but it is doubtful if many students have pos- 
sessed themselves of this information. 

A few comparative longitudes are worth memoriz- 
ing ; thus, Toronto, Pittsburg, Charleston, S.C., the east 
coast of Florida, Panama, and the western point of 
South America, are all very near the eightieth merid- 
ian. The eastern point of Maine (near Eastport), San 
Juan, Puerto Rico, and Cape Horn have about the 
same longitude. A great many exercises of this kind 



136 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

may be devised, but those are best from which the 
teacher can get the best results. The idea is not to 
memorize figures, but to get a good mental picture of 
the globe with a number of important localities in their 
relative position. For instance, if one has a mental 
picture of the American continent with South Amer- 
ica due south from North America, the picture is incor- 
rect. And so with various other relative positions : the 
teaching which fails to bring out the general facts of 
relation and direction is faulty teaching. 

The mathematical treatment and study of latitude 
and longitude, the varying length of the degree, the 
relations of longitude and time, are best deferred 
until the pupil reaches the subject of circular and 
angular measure in the arithmetic. Then it should 
be taken in detail to the maximum of the pupil's 
ability, and the course of instruction should include 
both the study of standard time and the calculation 
of local time. The estimation of the latitude and 
longitude of various places in the county usually can 
be made to within a minute of arc from a good 
county map, and a few reckonings of this character 
will be instructive, not for the memorization of 
figures, but for the value of the training. 

There are occasional problems in land measurement 
and description that require demonstration or explana- 
tion. The laying-off of land into sections and town- 
ships that nominally are square is much like fitting 



THE EMPHASIS OF ESSENTIALS 1 37 

a square peg to a round hole. If the instruction in 
latitude and longitude has been well done, it will 
not be difficult for the pupil to understand that the 
east and west boundaries of sections and townships 
cannot be meridians and at the same time enclose 
square areas, hence the necessity of corrective paral- 
lels. Now all this pertains both to square and to 
angular measure, and it should be studied in detail 
with the work in arithmetic. 

Pupils are required to be familiar with the zones 
that have such an important place in school geogra- 
phy, and in mathematical geography a certain amount 
of emphasis is always placed upon the position of the 
tropical and polar circles as zone boundaries. This 
is certainly proper, provided that the emphasis is 
placed upon these circles as the boundaries of light 
zones. As a matter of fact, however, the teacher is 
very apt to make them the boundaries of heat zones, 
and to this there ar© very positive objections. Heat 
zones and light zones are roughly coincident, it is 
true ; but while the latter are bounded by the tropi- 
cal and polar circles, the former are limited by 
isothermal lines that are exceedingly irregular. The 
light zones belong more especially to astronomy ; the 
heat zones, on the contrary, are zones of climate, and 
should be emphasized in the study of geography. 
The essential feature, moreover, is the irregularity of 
the boundaries. Thus the Labrador coast and the 



138 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

British Isles are in the same Hght zone ; but while 
the latter is one of the world's great centres of 
activity, the former is practically unhabitable, the 
former being in the frigid and the latter in the 
climatic temperate zone. Labrador and central Green- 
land are in different light zones, but they are practi- 
cally in the same zone of climate. It is not necessary 
that the teacher should omit the discussion of the 
one for the sake of emphasizing the other ; it is neces- 
sary only that distinction between the two should be 
kept in such a manner that there will be no con- 
fusion. 



CHAPTER VIII 

Pictures, Models, and the Globe 

One of the first things that comes with educative 
processes, as we ordinarily understand them, is the art 
of interpreting thought from arbitrary symbols. Alpha- 
betic reading is an example of such conventionaliza- 
tion, and probably the most difficult task that the 
child encounters during the period of infancy. But 
conventionalization and symbolization seem to be an 
inborn trait of the human family and, in a way, mark 
a distinction between the reasoning powers of human 
and brute life. Moreover, the conventionalisms of the 
child go hand in hand with certain operations of the 
imagination, and therefore they deserve an impor- 
tant place in education. A piece of stick wrapped 
with a bit of colored rag may have scarcely the 
faintest likeness to the human form, nevertheless, in 
a way, it may symbolize ; it is a conventionalism, 
and the imagination does the rest. Under the power 
of an imagination, more or less vivid, the paper tin- 
sel doll becomes a real king or queen with a grand 
retinue of courtiers ; the snow fort is an impregnable 
fortress, and responsibility would not rest more heavily 

139 



I40 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

on the shoulders of the commander were he repelling 
an actual invasion. 

Granted that these are extreme cases of the opera- 
tion of the symbol and the imagination, yet there is 
hardly an instance in which a conventionalized form 
is used that the imagination does not play a part ; 
indeed, there is scarcely a letter of the alphabet that 
is not fixed in the memory because the imagination, 
as an intermediary, erects it into a form of some kind 
or other. Thus, a certain child could always tell the 
word "beautiful" by sight because she pictured it as 
a butterfly ; another never failed on " throughout " 
because his imagination associated it with a cable 
chain ! These, of course, are cases out of the ordi- 
nary, but they illustrate the close connection between 
the imagination on the one hand and symbolization 
and conventionalization on the other. 

Symbolization, with the employment of conventional 
signs, has a very important place in geography teach- 
ing, and in presenting the subject three forms of 
conventionalization are employed : descriptive text, 
maps, and pictures and models. Of the three forms, 
perhaps the greatest reliance is placed upon the 
descriptive text ; and because verbal description 
covers such a wide field of possibilities, one is apt 
to give the first place of importance to the text. 
Certain it is that not many teachers could get along 
profitably without the text ; it is there that one must 



PICTURES, MODELS, AND THE GLOBE I4I 

find the logical and systematic development of the 
subject. Not only this, but from the educational 
standpoint the great value of the subject lies in the 
selection of the material ; indeed, tlie crucial test of 
the value of a text-book of geography is not so much 
what it contains as what it doesn't contain. A text 
in which the fundamental principles have been 
scuttled and sunk in a sea of irrelevant details may 
have a cyclopaedic value, but it is not worth much as 
an educative factor. 

Verbal description has its limits, however, and 
neither the most skilful teacher nor the most vivid 
writer can go beyond them. No one would think of 
attempting to teach even the most elementary forms 
by any except an objective method. Verbal descrip- 
tion may and does differentiate between a square 
and a circle, but the words of expression merely 
record the difference, they do not present it ; the 
presentation must be made by a visual study of the 
form itself. So, too, verbal description is incompetent 
to present color distinctions. Possibly a philosopher 
might indicate the difference between red and green 
by writing the figures of the wave-length of each 
color, but no one would be able to get much benefit 
from color study were the lessons taught that way ; 
nothing but the colors themselves will appeal to the 
intellect, and none but objective methods will bring 
tangible results in such a case. 



142 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

The same deductions, apply with equal force, in the 
teaching of geography. There are many, very many 
occasions in which verbal description is incompetent 
to convey the ideas by which an image of the form or 
the thing may be conceived. Unfortunately y^oxd-ideas 
are not always word-pictures, and so oftentimes the mind 
must seek the image in the conventionalized form, — 
the picture or the model. Pictures are frequently em- 
ployed to portray the physiology of human passions, 
and from a historic standpoint their value for this pur- 
pose cannot be too highly appreciated. It is not much 
of an exaggeration, however, to claim that a very large 
minority, if not a majority, of pictures are either expres- 
sions of geographic form or else of the activities result- 
ing from geographic environment. 

Most teachers are fully alive to the teaching value of 
pictures, and the picture scrap-book has come to be a 
recognized part of the equipment of the geography 
teacher. So great is the demand for pictures having 
geographic value that at least two publishing houses 
make the trade in pictures their chief business. The 
free use of pictures cannot be too highly commended, 
■for they enable the pupil to do not a little laboratory 
work that has, perhaps, quite as much value as though 
it were actual field work. 

A great collection of pictures chosen haphazard, 
however, possesses but little value; and, in general, 
unless the teacher has a definite idea as to the specific 



PICTURES, MODELS, AND THE GLOBE 1 43 

use of a given picture, the latter is worth but httle. It 
is the work of several years to make a useful and usable 
collection of pictures, and then perhaps half the number 
collected will be discarded either because the teacher 
gets more crystallized and definite ideas concerning 
their use, or else better subjects can be found to take 
the place of those discarded. 

To suggest a list of subjects would be wholly out of 
place in these pages. A collection suitable to the wants 
of one teacher might not and should not be of any great 
use to another. It should represent, not the fad of 
some method fiend, but the individuality of the teacher. 
The pictures themselves should represent, not what 
the principal or the school board think proper, but the 
pictures she can use the best. There are, however, 
a number of general principles involved which either 
directly or indirectly must govern all collections. 

In the first place, the fundamental principles of 
geography concern topographic forms and climate ; the 
results of these are the specific forms of organic life 
now existing and their various activities. The pictures 
therefore should include, first of all, good illustrations 
of geographic forms, both vertical and horizontal. For 
primary work it is essential that these should be of the 
very simplest character. Anything that detracts from 
the principal feature serves to confuse ; therefore, a pic- 
ture lacking in clearness should be discarded. Alpine 
mountaineers recognize some score or more of forms of 



144 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

mountain peaks ; but a child seeing the whole group of 
them would scarcely recognize more than two or three 
forms ; therefore, in primary work, two or three types, 
in all about a dozen examples, are sufficient. With 
more advanced pupils, however, there will be but lit- 
tle difficult)^ in distinguishing between the peaks, the 
domes, the cinder cones, the projecting cliffs, and the 
mesas ; therefore these types may be profitably studied 
in detail at the proper time and place. 

Because they are great wrinkles or folds in the 
strata of the rock envelope, mountain ranges are fun- 
damental features of topography. Models and photo- 
gravures of models will often give a better idea of 
the relation of mountain ranges to the continents, 
whose surface they diversify, than can be obtained 
from pictures. It must be borne in mind, however, 
that while the model or the photogravure shows the 
general relation of a system to the continent, and 
of the mutual relation of the ranges of a system, 
it does not correctly show the details of mountain 
scenery, and it fails to show their character at all. 
Such details as the inter montane valley, the transverse 
pass, the various forms of the crest, the hogbacks, 
and the canons are best studied from pictures. Good 
pictures of mountain scenery, that show something 
more than one slope of a range, are not always to be 
obtained at a moment's notice, but fortunately most of 
the modern text-books contain fair to excellent illus- 



PICTURES, MODELS, AND THE GLOBE 145 

trations. For primary work only the simplest illustra- 
tions should be employed. With intermediate work 
there should be illustrations which show some of the 
elements of structure, if possible ; and in advanced 
classes both structure and the effects produced by 
degradation ought to be presented. 

Topographic forms are greatly modified by climate. 
Arctic forms are unlike those of the tropics, and the 
landscapes of arid regions are wonderfully unlike 
those in regions of bountiful rainfall. For advanced 
pupils, therefore, the specific scenery of each kind of 
region should be so thoroughly studied that the pupil 
will readily recognize the character of each. Once 
the difference in the character of the Appalachian and 
the Rocky Mountain scenery is brought to the atten- 
tion, there will be no difficulty in recognizing each 
with a casual glance. Tropical regions, whether arid 
or fertile, usually show their character in their vege- 
tation, and Arctic coasts are almost always recognizable 
by the presence of ice or by the form that snow and 
ice have given to the surface. 

The morphology of coast outlines is an important 
feature in geography because of their bearing upon 
human activities. In presenting these the same 
cautions should be observed with immature pupils as 
has been noted in other cases : select the simple and 
clear types, and take only the most general forms. 
In many instances the map will prove quite as practical 



146 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

as the picture, even with primary pupils. One might 
find a picture of a peninsula, a bay, a strait, or an 
isthmus, but in most instances where these are shown 
they are bogus. Their made-to-order character is very 
apparent, and too frequently they are pictures the like 
of which does not exist in nature. There are other 
coast outlines, however, that are best shown by means 
of pictures. Even the youngest pupils must be taught 
something about the character of shore lines, and it 
is well to present pictures of the cliff-girt coast, with 
its long, unbroken wall, the rock-bound coast, with 
its multitude of islets, and the low, sandy coast hemmed 
in by wave-formed spits and barrier beaches. With 
primary pupils it is neither necessary nor wise to 
classify them, but even without classification they are 
none the less instructive. 

The explanation of physiographic processes also de- 
mands the frequent use of pictures. In a great many 
cases the child must depend very largely upon them 
for illustration. Illustrations of erosion, corrasion, ox- 
bows, and deltas may and should be studied by obser- 
vation, it is true; but knowledge thus obtained must 
be broadened by the inspection of pictures, maps, and 
diagrams. The same is true in studying other features 
of degradation, as the work of the wind in forming 
dunes, or that of vegetation in breaking down rock 
cliffs. Even where these things may be investigated 
directly from nature, pictorial illustrations of similar 



PICTURES, MODELS, AND THE GLOBE 1 47 

character are exceedingly helpful. The trained scholar 
does not hesitate to use them, regarding them always 
for what they are worth — and they are worth a great 
deal. 

Life and its activities include a very diversified range 
of knowledge, and here again one must rely upon con- 
ventionalized forms. It is necessary to have at least a 
theoretical knowledge of the various races of mankind 
and their institutions. Verbal description, however 
vivid, gives not only an unsatisfactory, but an incom- 
plete, knowledge of the subject ; so the picture must 
help to complete the idea. A certain amount of knowl- 
edge about animal life is demanded of every intelligent 
person, and it is a singular fact that most children are 
better acquainted with the wild animals of the jungle, 
the forest, and the desert than with the people of those 
same regions. There are but few boys and girls of 
ten years who do not possess a surprisingly large 
knowledge of the lion, the tiger, or the elephant ;^ yet 
scarcely one of them could distinguish a Bedouin Arab 
from an East Indian or a Malay. All this goes to show 
that the possibilities of teaching by means of pictures 
are very great ; it also demonstrates the fact that we 
do not always accomplish the results that in some other 
way may be reached with ease. 

1 Perhaps, as a rule, they know these better than the wild animals that 
possibly may be in their own neighborhood; the former they have learned 
from the illustrated picture books. 



148 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

The social institutions of the peoples of different 
parts of the world are as characteristic as their faces. 
Almost instinctively the mind seeks the knowledge of 
how people live, what they do, and what they wear. 
The garb of a Chinese, a Japanese, an Eskimo, an East 
Indian, an American Indian, or an Arab is each so 
specific that one may usually distinguish the race by 
the apparel. The character of the garb, and of the 
employments as well, is also a very useful key to de- 
termine the grade of the civilization. In work of this 
character it is needless to say that good pictures afford 
about the only means of objective teaching at the com- 
mand of the teacher. A certain amount of '* laboratory " 
work to test the extent of the pupil's observation is 
never a waste of time, and in this sort of work pictures 
are absolutely essential ; descriptive reading may take 
its place, but the latter cannot be made a substitute for 
picture study. 

The study of industrial and economic geography opens 
a field so vast that to enumerate the subjects of essential 
illustrations would be an endless task. No particular 
word of advice needs be given beyond a general direction 
to use pictures when the descriptive text does not con- 
vey a specific and distinct idea. In general, a picture 
that does not show a specific thing, the knowledge 
of which possesses training value, has no place in a 
working collection. Thus, a picture of a cotton mill, 
which shows nothing but a building with a smokestack. 



PICTURES, MODELS, AND THE GLOBE 1 49 

may be truthful, but it has the minimum of educational 
value. On the other hand, a picture of a spinning- 
jenny, which spins one hundred and fifty threads in 
less than one-third the time the old-fashioned wheel 
required for a single thread, makes an excellent object 
lesson to show how and why the manufacture of cotton 
textiles has reached its enormous development in the 
United States. The picture of a header, or wheat- 
harvesting machine, that cuts a swath of thirty feet 
through the field, also makes a fine topic for an object 
lesson when compared with a view of "cradling" the 
grain. What better way could there be of demonstrat- 
ing at least one of the reasons how and why the price 
of flour has dropped from more than ten dollars to less 
than half that sum per barrel ! 

Then, too, there are many words that in common 
conversation are very loosely used. For instance, 
the word "ship" is employed to designate about 
everything that is propelled by sail power ; yet the 
distinction between a ship, a schooner, a sloop, a 
brig, and a bark is so readily learned from pictures 
that there is no excuse for a misuse of the terms. 
Steam crafts for ocean navigation are so different 
from those plying on rivers and littoral waters, that 
not to know the difference between them is to be 
ignorant of things that are helpful. The evolution 
of fighting vessels has brought into use many new 
terms, such as "cruiser," "battleship," "torpedo boat," 



150 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

"tender," "transport," "turret," "ram," and a host of 
others ; and it is necessary to use these intelligently. 
Therefore, picture study becomes imperative in distin- 
guishing them, because the great majority of people 
who use these words can learn their proper applica- 
tion from no other source. 

Another conventionalized form is the topographic 
model or relief map, the normal place of which hith- 
erto has been somewhat uncertain. Without doubt 
the use of the model is indicated when a misunder- 
standing occurs with reference to the third dimen- 
sion of space. Beyond this point, however, the ideas 
of the proper place of the model and the moulding 
board are vague, and the use of both has been unsat- 
isfactory. The theories of the use of the model and 
the moulding board have generally come from educa- 
tional writers who are not primary teachers, and who 
have had no training in the science of topography. 
The alleged "educational" models, a few instances 
excepted, have been devised and constructed by per- 
sons who have no knowledge of topography what- 
ever ; on the other hand, most of the relief maps 
that are good are ill adapted for ordinary school 
work. As a matter of fact, the intent of the elabo- 
rated relief map is to show character and structure — 
sometimes one, sometimes the other, sometimes both. 
For instance, the Davis models are designed to show 
the evolution of certain forms. They are severely 



PICTURES, MODELS, AND THE GLOBE 151 

plain, but to the student of physiography they are 
valuable in the highest degree. It is hardly neces- 
sary to add that they have no place in primary work. 
The models which have made the brothers Mindeleff 
famous are remarkable for the manner in which they 
show the character of the topography, and in this is 
their great value. The same feature marks Mr. 
Howell's models also. 

Some of the topographic models are grotesque in 
this respect. One enterprising New York publisher 
secured the services of a Swiss artist whose efforts 
resulted in relief maps that were reproductions of 
Swiss topography — Europe, Asia, Africa, and the 
Americas were all articulated bits of Alpine crags 
and Interlachen plains. In another instance the 
model of North America presented a Rocky Moun- 
tain system whose eastern slope extended to the 
Atlantic, and on the lower part of its flank were 
erected the Appalachian Mountains. It is fortunate 
for all concerned that such things have had their 
day, and a matter of greater congratulation that but 
few pupils ever used them. 

In the place of the elaborate model there has come 
the practice of using the photo-relief, binding the latter 
with the pages of the book. The photo-relief, on the 
whole, answers the purpose admirably, and a set of 
such reproductions is found in nearly every primary 
text-book. Their stereographic effect is marked, and 



152 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

whatever may be lost in detail is more than gained 
by convenience and availability. 

Neither the model nor its photo-relief, however, can 
take the place of the sand moulding-board. This 
apparatus has been commended in very roseate terms 
by some teachers, while its usefulness has been dis- 
paraged by others. Perhaps when there has been 
an attempt to carry on an elaborate and systematic 
course in sand-modelling, the work has been barren 
of good results. On the other hand, when the mould- 
ing-board is used in the same manner that one would 
employ a blackboard, it has proved a most serviceable 
piece of schoolroom apparatus. One must bear in 
mind that the successful use of any sort of school 
apparatus implies not only an intelligent knowledge 
of the subject, but also definite ideas as to the pur- 
pose for which the apparatus is to be used. One must 
bear in mind, however, that the form moulded on the 
sand table is strictly conventional and wholly without 
character : to show the latter the teacher must resort 
to the picture, or, if possible, to the form in nature. 

There comes a time, too, when the pupil must face 
the problems that are involved in the consideration 
of the earth as a whole — such, for instance, as the 
rotation of the earth, the distribution of land and 
water, and some of the problems of mathematical 
geography. Now the teacher may approach these 
problems in two ways — by using the flat map or by 



PICTURES, MODELS, AND THE GLOBE 1 53 

making use of a terrestrial globe. In the latter case, 
however, the pupil is very apt to go through life 
with a flat earth. And the reason is obvious : at 
the age when the mind is most sensitive to impres- 
sions, and the latter are the most lasting, the pupil 
is studying a flat instead of a round earth. 

In many instances courses of study in geography 
are vicious so far as the uses of the globe are con- 
cerned, inasmuch as they prescribe work that cannot 
be done. In other instances no definite instructions 
as to what shall be the character of the work done 
in each grade. In the primary grades no difficult 
concepts should be presented. Practically but two 
or three things are required : the child must learn 
that rotation causes the succession of day and night ; 
the relative size and position of the continents must 
also be studied until the mental image of them is 
clear. In studying the effect of rotation it is difficult 
to understand why a teacher should use an apple or 
a ball, when a globe is a part of the equipment of 
so many schools. Moreover, in almost every text- 
book the principle of rotation is illustrated, and the 
picture is a very good substitute if there be no globe. 
In developing this idea, common sense suggests that the 
mathematical geography should be limited to the matter 
of rotation and the incidental use of the terms " pole " 
and "axis." The definition of these terms does not 
belong to primary geography. 



154 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

The main thing at this stage, however, is one 
that requires neither explanation nor demonstration — 
nothing but individual work on the part of the pupil. 
The latter must study the globe until the image of 
an earth with the continental land masses radiating 
from the north circumpolar regions is fixed thoroughly 
in the mind — so thoroughly that it cannot be for- 
gotten. It is evident that this can be accomplished 
in one way only — a study of the globe itself as a 
miniature earth. It is equally evident, also, that for 
this purpose the large globe, mounted on a tripod, 
has no place in primary classes ; for such an exercise 
a small three or four-inch globe is necessary, and it 
should be in the hands of each pupil. The rest depends 
on the skill of the teacher. If the work of the latter 
be well done, there is no good reason why a pupil 
should go through life with a fiat earth as the chief 
legacy of the geography course. A few years since, 
when the cost of school globes ranged from twenty 
to one hundred dollars or more, there was a reasonable 
excuse for its absence from the schoolroom ; but now 
that good, serviceable globes six inches in diameter 
can be purchased for less than a quarter of a dollar, 
there is no reason why half a dozen or more should 
not form a part of the equipment of every primary 
school. 

In intermediate work there are several exercises in 
which the globe is essential. The fundamental prin- 



PICTURES, MODELS, AND THE GLOBE 1 55 

ciples of latitude and longitude are best studied from 
it, and so, too, the positions of the polar and the 
tropical circles, as boundaries of the light zones. In 
advanced geography, in history, and in economics the 
globe is occasionally necessary. Thus, the problems 
involved in the search for the Northeast and the 
Northwest Passage cannot be well understood when 
studied from the map, but they are full of meaning 
when one reads them from the globe. So, too, with 
the statement that recently appeared in a review, 
" The completion of the Nicaragua Canal will bring 
San Francisco nearer to London than Calcutta now 
is," has only an abstract meaning unless corroborated 
by an inspection and comparison of the routes on a 
globe. 

It is scarcely necessary to add that the manual of 
instruction that frequently accompanies the globe has 
no place as a part of school work in geography. The 
problems are very good exercises in mathematical geog- 
raphy and astronomy, but they have no place in the 
grade work of geography. 



CHAPTER IX 

Maps and their Uses 

Of all the devices for representing the earth's 
putative surface, the ordinary map is perhaps the 
most severely conventional. In the map every sug- 
gestion of perspective is either absent or repressed 
from the extremely arbitrary symbols employed. There 
must be conceived the correct mental images of coast 
forms, topography, and the various features resulting 
from human agency — rivers, mountains, lakes, bays, 
straits, oceans, and continents, each having its pecul- 
iar symbol either in form or in color. 

There has been no little discussion about the 
proper interpretation of the conventionalized forms of 
cartography ; but it is probable, so far as external 
form is concerned, that the image erected in the 
pupil's mind is reasonably correct. There are but 
few pupils entering the classes in which a text-book 
of geography is first used who have not fairly correct 
ideas of landscape and topographic features. Probably 
three-fourths of the pupils in the lowest grade of the 
public schools have correct ideas about the meaning 
of the terms "hill," "creek" or "river," and "pond"; 
a majority, too, have definite ideas of a shore, and know 

156 



MAPS AND THEIR USES 1 57 

the essential shore forms in fact if not by name. It is 
well to bear in mind that outside the general distinc- 
tion of land and water not more than a score of 
forms are conventionalized, and almost always the 
general name of the form appears in connection with 
the specific name, as Hudson Bay, Isthmus of Suez, 
etc. It should also be remembered that, for the 
greater part, the map concerns only the localization of 
geographic features. Doubtless there have been 
instances where pupils have confused a map name 
with the form to which it belongs, but such instances 
exist more in the imagination of lecturers on methods 
than in the grade class rooms. 

There are certain misconceptions, however, that are 
apt to come in the experience of nearly every instruc- 
tor. The teacher who discovers that two maps of the 
same division, drawn on the same scale, differ in 
shape, at first most likely will conclude that one or 
the other is inaccurate. As a matter of fact, both 
are inaccurate. Indeed, accuracy is the one virtue 
that cannot possibly belong to a flat map. A map 
may have outlines that are geometrically similar, or 
areas that are in correct proportion ; but it cannot 
possibly have similarity and correct proportion at the 
same time — no more can one have a piece of pie 
and eat it at the same time. So in some maps the 
outlines are geometrically similar ; in others the areas 
are in proportion, while the outlines are distorted ; 



158 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

in still others there is intentional distortion of both 
areas and outlines. In some instances the scale of 
miles can be used ; in others it cannot. On some 
maps a great circle, or an arc thereof, can be drawn 
with the utmost ease ; in others the curve that repre- 
sents a great circle is so complex that it requires a 
mathematical training in order to project it. Accu- 
racy, therefore, is out of the question, because one 
cannot put on a plane an area that is a part of the 
surface of a sphere. 

A map must be consistent, however, and unless it 
possesses this virtue, it is worth but little. To be 
consistent, every feature must have its proper posi- 
tion, and this is determined on the map as it is on a 
globe, that is, every point must have its correct 
latitude and longitude. The parallels and meridians, 
therefore, are the essential and structural features of 
the map. They are the only " construction lines " 
that the cartographer uses, and no others are required. 
The science of map-drawing consists almost wholly 
in establishing the curvature and relative position of 
these lines ; the charting of the details is a work that 
is more an art than a science. 

The method of locating the parallels and meridians 
is called projection} and there are more than a score 
of ways in which they may be projected. For maps 

^ For the various methoris of projection, see the author's "Reproduc- 
tion of Geographic Forms," D. C. Heath & Co. 



MAPS AND THEIR USES 1 59 

of small regions it is generally desirable to have the 
proportion of areas preserved so that the scale of 
miles will be true on any part of the map. For this 
purpose Bonne's projection is commonly used for the 
maps of states, state groups, etc., in text-books. It 
conceives each hemisphere, that is, northern and 
southern, in shape much like a sugar loaf or dome. 
In some instances, where accuracy of proportion is 
not required, the hemisphere, northern or southern, 
is conceived to be a cone ; the map, then, will be 
the convex surface of the cone, unrolled and laid 
upon a plane. The conic projection is sometimes 
used in the projection of maps of Europe and the 
United States. When a still larger area is to be 
charted — a grand division or a continent, for instance, 
— the slant height of the cone is changed at every 
parallel, making the polyconic projection. For maps 
of Europe, Asia, and North America, either the poly- 
conic or Bonne's projection is usually employed. The 
former distorts proportion of area ; the latter, out- 
lines. For large areas crossed by the equator, such 
as Africa and South America, a slightly modified 
Bonne's projection, or Flamsteed's, is frequently em- 
ployed, as it gives both fairly accurate proportions 
and outlines. 

Almost every geography contains maps of the hemi- 
spheres, but the use for which they are intended is not 
apparent to every teacher. They are designed to show 



l60 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

the relative sizes and positions of the great land masses, 
both to the earth and also to one another. Doubtless 
there are many useful exercises that the teacher may- 
base upon these maps, but manifestly its most impor- 
tant use is the one suggested. So far as possible the 
maps of the grand divisions should be on the same 
scale throughout the book ; and even when they are, 
their comparison in the group, as they appear on the 
hemispheres, is helpful. But if the continents and 
their divisions are not on a uniform scale, then a care- 
ful study of relative size and position from hemisphere 
maps is imperative. 

Another sort of projection, the Mercator, has like- 
wise a very definite and useful place in class-room 
work. A casual inspection of this chart, however, 
shows that both outlines and areas are grotesquely out 
of proportion, while a scale of miles can be used along 
the equator only. It is evident, therefore, that the 
Mercator chart must be restricted to certain uses. 
This projection was devised by Gerard Kauffmann 
(or Kramer), the Latinized translation of which has 
given to it the name it now bears. It conceives the 
earth to be a cyclinder, theoretically of infinite length. 
The convex surface of the cylinder unrolled upon a 
plane, therefore, becomes the map. The Mercator is 
intended primarily as a chart for the use of sailors. 
Its great merit lies in the fact that a straight line on 
the chart practically represents the arc of a great circle. 



MAPS AND THEIR USES l6l 

For track charts a slightly modified form is employed.^ 
For all ordinary purposes, however, the distances be- 
tween the parallels are laid off at convenience, and 
without reference to mathematical formulas. 

The chief merit of the Mercator, so far as landsmen 
are concerned, is the fact that it presents a map of the 
earth with a continuous unbroken surface — a feature 
that is often very desirable. No advanced text-book of 
geography is complete without a track chart, for there 
never was a time when an intelligent knowledge of 
routes of trade was so necessary a part of education 
as at the present. For the graphic charting of all 
planetary features — the distribution of winds, rain- 
fall, heat, life, etc. — the Mercator is the most prac- 
tical map that can be used in a text-book. When 
teachers and pupils realize that it is designed for con- 
venience in showing these features, and not for the 
geography of location, the question of distorted out- 
lines and areas will no longer be a perplexity. 

From the foregoing paragraphs it is evident that 
each kind of projection has specific merits and de- 
merits, and that the true value of the map cannot be 
appreciated unless one understands something of the 
general principles of their construction. Of the four 
or five principal projections named, perhaps one in 
twenty is familiar with the name Mercator, while in 

1 Directions and tables for projecting this chart will be found in the 
author's " Reproduction of Geographic Forms," D. C. Heath & Co. 

M 



1 62 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

audiences aggregating more than one hundred thou- 
sand teachers, the writer has found scarcely one hun- 
dred who are familiar with the others. It would be 
unwise at the present time to advocate the teaching 
of the principles of projection in elementary schools ; 
yet the construction of most ordinary projections is so 
extremely simple, and so fundamental withal, that at 
least a superficial study of the subject ought to be 
encouraged. For the teacher, however, an understand- 
ing of these principles is an absolute necessity. 

There are still a few teachers of geography who go 
through the laborious process of working out " con- 
struction " diagrams that are to be memorized by the 
pupils. Just what is gained by such a plan is not clear. 
A construction diagram that would apply to a given 
area in one book could scarcely be used in the maps 
of another. If it is intended as an aid in producing 
an elaborately finished map, such a clumsy device is 
useless ; it is also a confession of ignorance of the 
fundamental principles of map-drawing. If a finished 
map is required, the parallels and meridians must ap- 
pear, or the map has no value. Moreover, these are 
the only construction lines needed, and the cartographer 
uses no other. There are a very few schools in which 
most excellent work in map-drawing is done, but in the 
great majority it is either very poorly done or not 
done at all. In the French, German, and English 
schools, map-drawing is infinitely better taught than 



MAPS AND THEIR USES 1 63 

in the United States, and there is a general opinion 
that the time is well spent. 

But in general the production of elaborately finished 
maps is not out of place. In almost every school 
there is an occasional pupil having an aptitude for 
mechanical drawing, and an inaptitude for the routine 
work of the class room. In such instances practice 
in the drawing of finished maps is not out of place. 
Only this — such pupils must be taught not only the 
construction of projections, but the technique of the 
work as well. They must be taught how to execute 
the hachures, the coast-charting, the lettering, and the 
coloring. And when all this is accomplished, when 
a map is produced that on its face has the ear marks 
of the amateur, what is there to show ? Merely a 
copy, nothing original — only a map whose intrinsic 
value is exceedingly small. But the time is hardly 
wasted, even though the map itself may have little or 
no value ; the training is worth a great deal, and if the 
teacher's work has been well done, the pupil has ac- 
quired neatness, precision, and thoroughness. And 
these are attributes that he will be likely to apply in 
the professional work of his life. 

Map-drawing as applied to the production of the 
off-hand sketch map, however, has a very definite 
place in the class room. In this sort of exercise 
nothing but the rapidly produced outline is required, 
and in its execution not more than half a minute 



l64 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

or a minute should be permitted. To make a good, 
off-hand outline requires some training and practice 
— at first with the model before the pupil, and then 
from memory. In the preliminary practice it is well 
to keep in mind that the bold, rapid stroke of the 
pencil or crayon gives an outline much truer in 
proportion than does the slow, pains-taking movement 
of the hand, that is expressive of doubt. Indeed, the 
bold, free stroke is the secret of good proportioned 
outline. In accomplishing the memory work, that 
drudgery of geography, the sketch map is probably 
the teacher's most useful coadjutor. A great deal of 
brain energy oozes out at the finger ends, and when 
hand and brain are working in harmony, there is a 
result that is not ordinarily reached when the two 
are not correlated. When a pupil has made an off- 
hand sketch in crayon, and has named or indicated 
the various coast features, he has by that process 
memorized about all the geography of the coast that 
any intelligent person will ever be called upon to 
know. When, by a few strokes of the crayon, he has 
drawn or otherwise indicated drainage basins and 
divides, or has distinguished the highlands from the 
lowlands, he has memorized the fundamental features 
of continent structure. And when he locates the 
various " culture " features, that is, the seaports, 
markets, and various other centres of population, he 
has incidentally memorized the location of each in 



MAPS AND THEIR USES 165 

doing so. If, then, the teacher develops the fact that 
those same human features are there because of geo- 
graphic reasons, the memory work passes from the 
stage of empiric into that of actual knowledge. 

There is another kind of exercise in map-drawing 
that possesses a high training value ; namely, the 
graphic charting of geographic statistics. The state- 
ment that the wheat crop of the United States is 
more than half a billion bushels,^ is one that carries 
practically no meaning to a child. If the statement 
were to read five million bushels instead, in all prob- 
ability it would not be questioned. The reason is 
not hard to find ; the number itself is so vast that 
its value cannot be comprehended, and the problem 
involves an experimental knowledge not very likely 
to be the possession of an immature mind. If, instead 
of an arbitrary number value, it is stated in a com- 
parative form as, say, one-fourth the world's wheat 
crop, the statement has a much greater value. But 
not until one charts the principal regions of wheat- 
growing on an outline map of the United States, does 
the full meaning appear. Then it is seen that, the 
Pacific coast area excepted, the wheat crop is confined 
almost wholly to the northeast quarter of the country ; 
similarly, it may be shown that the cotton crop is 
confined to the southeastern quarter. Is there a 
reason for this distribution, or did it merely happen 

1 In 1898 it aggregated 758,000,000 bushels. 



l66 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

90 ? Moreover, both the cotton and the wheat have 
practically the same limit in the west, and the same 
line is also the western limit of dense population. 
Can this also be the result of chance, or are there 
factors of climate and topography that fix these limits ? 
To the student who will follow these questions to the 
finish, there will appear the fundamental principles 
which have led to the historical and industrial develop- 
ment of the country along the lines it has followed. 
These are likely to be disclosed when the statistics 
are charted on the map, but they will not otherwise 
present themselves. The historian, the statistician, 
and the economist resort to this method of graphic 
charting in order to understand statistics ; why should 
not the class teacher ? There are various ways in 
which this sort of map-drawing, or rather map-edit- 
ing, may be applied. It covers almost everything 
involving the idea of geographic distribution. It 
applies to history, to economics, and to the distribu- 
tion of every kind of product. All the more recently 
published geographies are full of suggestions concern- 
ing it. It is needless to say that, in pursuing the 
practice of charting statistics, the use of printed out- 
line maps is a great saving of time. 

There is still another feature about the study of 
maps that is quite as important as map-drawing ; 
namely, map-reading. One sometimes forgets that 
every form or character on a map stands for a particu- 



MAPS AND THEIR USES 1 6/ 

lar geographic feature, and that almost always there 
is something about it that is an index of character. 
Thus the ragged and frayed-out coast of Maine, or of 
Norway, is totally unhke that of the Netherlands or the 
southeastern United States. These marks are an in- 
dex to the character of the coast. In the former, one 
finds the result of a rugged, glaciated surface sloping 
abruptly and subsiding below sea level ; in the latter, 
a coast plain slopes so gently below tide water that 
the drag of the waves piles up long, narrow spits and 
barrier beaches. From the latitude, as expressed in the 
margin of the map, one may readily form accurate con- 
clusions about the conditions of heat and cold, and from 
the same source one can generally decide whether 
atmospheric movements have an easterly or a westerly 
origin. From the position of highlands one may learn 
whether a given region receives the full impact of 
wind-driven rain, or is shut off from the sweep of sea 
winds. Aridity of climate is discovered in the erratic 
rivers that seemingly begin nowhere and end nowhere, 
and in the lakes without outlets. When one knows the 
limits of the tropical rain belt and its seasonal migra- 
tion, there is no difficulty in finding whether a given 
region has one rainy season each year or two of them. 
One may also decide, with a fair degree of accuracy, 
whether a given region receives its atmospheric mois- 
ture from seasonal and periodic rains or from cyclonic 
storms. Indeed, there are but few of the general fea- 



1 68 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

tures of climate that cannot be read as clearly and 
plainly from the map as from the text. 

In order to put the interpretation of maps on a better 
and a more scientific basis, a new plan for the delinea- 
tion of topographic features has been coming into use 
in the past few years. In the place of the hachures, 
which conventionally represent mountains, lines called 
contours, marking and connecting points of equal eleva- 
tion above sea level, are used. The hachures, originally 
intended to show the shading of slopes, in latter years 
have degenerated into symbols more closely resembling 
the march of processional caterpillars. Even under the 
hand of the most skilful topographer they could repre- 
sent nothing but ranges, ridges, and cliffs ; the broad 
expanses of nearly level highland they could not por- 
tray, nor could there be any distinction between such 
highlands and the lowlands. Manifestly, the maps 
that were wanting to such an extent in essential fea- 
tures could have but Httle scientific value. And so the 
contour map came to take the place of one that had 
about reached the limit of its usefulness, when its chief 
merit was to designate political divisions in calico 
colors. Because of its superior qualities the contour 
map has become the map officially used by most of the 
European governments and by the United States. By 
the United States Geological Survey it has been 
brought to the highest degree of excellence and useful- 
ness, and the topographic maps now being published 



MAPS AND THEIR USES 1 69 

by the Survey are the finest specimens of cartography 
produced in the world. 

The nature and scope of these maps are explained 
in detail in the catalogue which is sent to any one at 
request. In order to facilitate the study of maps Mr. 
Gannett, the topographer of the Geological Survey, 
has collected about a score of typical maps, and these 
are published under the name of the " Topographic 
Atlas." A descriptive text accompanies the atlas. 
The map sheets published by the Geological Survey 
are furnished free to chartered colleges and to public 
libraries ; otherwise, they are sold at the cost of paper 
and printing, five cents each for single sheets, and 
in proportion for double and quadruple sheets. It is 
suggested that teachers provide themselves with half a 
dozen sheets in the neighborhood of the school, pro- 
vided that the maps of the particular area have been 
issued. Among the most valuable maps for the school- 
room is the double sheet " relief map " of the United 
States, colored in contours.^ In sending orders for 
these maps, remittance must be made in cash or money 
orders, as postage stamps and personal checks will not 
be received. 

The Coast and Geodetic Survey likewise publishes a 
number of maps having great educational value ; one of 

1 For a list of government maps having educational value, the reader 
is referred to " Governmental Maps for Use in Schools," Henry Holt & 
Co., Nevv' York. 



170 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

these, New York Harbor, is suggested for the purpose 
of making pupils acquainted with the range lights, 
channels, buoys, channel markers, and signals employed 
as safeguards to navigation. 

Another highly interesting map is that of the " Allu- 
vial Valley of the Mississippi River," published by the 
Mississippi River Commission, St. Louis, Mo. It con- 
sists of eight large sheets, on a scale of five miles to the 
inch ; price forty cents. It is a complete and a highly 
instructive map of the river from Cairo to the Gulf, 
showing the meandering of the stream and the cut-offs 
and ox-bow lakes. These maps show with wonderful 
clearness the physiographic characteristics of large 
rivers. A " Prehminary Map " of the Lower Missis- 
sippi, on a scale of one mile to the inch, is published in 
thirty-two sheets, under the authority of the Commis- 
sion. These maps are also sold at five cents per sheet. 
One of these sheets. Palmyra Lake, formerly Palmyra 
Bend, is a very instructive sheet, from which the history 
of Davis cut-off may be read. 

The teacher ought also to become familiar with the 
Coast Pilot Chart, and a series of the monthly charts for 
the year — or, at least, a midsummer and a midwinter 
chart — should be a part of the equipment of every 
physical geography class. These charts contain in- 
formation about trade-wind limits, storm tracks, and 
saihng routes, not to be found elsewhere. Weather 
bureau maps should also be used from the moment the 



MAPS AND THEIR USES I/I 

pupils are old enough to interpret their meaning. 
There is no other department of geography so practical 
as weather observation, and pupils in the advanced 
grammar grades in some of the western schools are 
trained to make forecasts that reach a very high degree 
of accuracy. 

But there is always the carping carper who at the 
consideration of this idea sounds the time-worn, 
dolorous moan, cui bono. Well, what are these publi- 
cations for if not to be studied .-• They represent the 
observations and researches of the men who put a use- 
less geography of the past on the plane of a useful sci- 
ence, and have demonstrated that commerce, sociology, 
and economics are in harmony with the man, only when 
they have been developed along geographic lines. 
Education is democratic, not aristocratic ; and the work 
of the scientific departments of the government is for 
the people, not for the scholar. The conduct of these 
departments has but one end in view ; namely, to bring 
more of prosperity and civilization within the reach of 
every one. To reject or to neglect the pubhcations of 
these bureaus, therefore, is to deprive the pupil of rights 
that are guaranteed him. 



CHAPTER X 

The Course of Study 

In no other study of the pubHc schools is the course 
of instruction so varied, so disconnected, and so illogi- 
cal as that of geography. In the English and French 
schools it is, on the whole, decidedly superior when we 
consider results. In the German schools it is incom- 
parably better taught, and the courses of study are far 
better. Until within a few years there has been a pop- 
ular sentiment against the study itself, and in not a 
few instances have teachers of wide reputation prided 
themselves. on their ignorance of the subject. Even at 
the present time there is a very general notion that the 
study of geography means merely the acquisition of a 
great number of names and locations. Latterly, how- 
ever, there is an accepted notion that, instead of being 
"a description of the earth's surface," it should be "a 
description of the earth as the home of man"; but there 
is a lurking suspicion that the idea has more of precept 
than of practice. 

Nevertheless there has been a most marked improve- 
ment in the geography teaching throughout the country 
during the last two decades. The individual teacher is 

172 



THE COURSE OF STUDY 1 73 

better equipped in the matter of geographical educa- 
tion ; popular sentiment has been awakened ; text-books 
are better; a few universities have provided summer 
courses for teachers ; a dozen or more normal schools 
have provided trained instructors ; and at least two 
leading universities have well-equipped laboratories and 
special departments of geography. What is still better, 
in many of the graded schools, especially throughout 
the Mississippi Valley, the principals themselves have 
taken the matter in hand, and have undertaken a care- 
ful and even a personal supervision of the study. All 
this is very hopeful, and it means that, in the near 
future, there will be no necessity to apologize for the 
geography teaching in the American schools ; there 
certainly is at the present time. 

Two things are very necessary to bring about better 
results ; namely, better preparation on the teacher's 
part, and better courses of study. The first can be 
readily planned, but it will require time in which to 
carry the plans into effect. For the use of the teacher 
who cannot prepare, under a trained instructor, a defi- 
nite course of instruction, field work, laboratory work 
and reading must be provided, and the examinations for 
certificates must be based on this work. It is doubtful 
if a provision of this kind exists in a single state. Ohio 
has a most excellent syllabus of geography, — certainly 
one of the best that has yet been provided, — but the 
use of it is compulsory in theory only ; practically, its 



174 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

publication has been a waste of good paper. The 
moral is obvious : if a suitable preparatory course for 
the instruction of the teacher is devised, its use for 
that purpose ought to be made mandatory, and the 
examinations for certificates should be based upon it. 

Most certainly the pupils would profit by a better 
preparation of the teacher, but a source of still greater 
benefit ought to be sought in another reform ; namely, 
better balanced courses of study. Doubtless these are 
coming in time, and perhaps it is wise to make haste 
slowly. To a certain extent the course of study has a 
temporary limit in the ability of the teacher. If such 
a course as is employed, say, at Weimar, were imme- 
diately put into force in any city of the United States, 
the results would be disastrous. The teachers would 
not be well enough equipped to carry out the work 
as it is prescribed ; the pupils would be ill-prepared 
to receive it. Such an elaborate course is the result 
of slow growth ; both time and local conditions are 
required to give it real value. In Weimar and Leip- 
zig the course of study covers ten years, extending 
from the grades corresponding to the intermediate, 
through the high school course. Or if the student after 
taking the course of eight years in the elementary 
school elects to enter the normal school, there is a 
course of six years, fourteen years in all, before him. 

Against this a pupil in the schools of the United 
States, after three years of "nature study" in the pri- 



THE COURSE OF STUDY 1/5 

mary grades, begins the systematic study of geography 
in the fourth year of the elementary school and finishes 
it, usually in the eighth year, but very frequently in 
the seventh. In both the German and the American 
schools the time varies from one to two and one-half 
hours per week, the average being a little less than two. 
In the schools of the United States the subject is again 
taken up for about half a year, or, perhaps, a full year in 
the high school, under the name of physical geography. 
It is also studied in the normal schools, but generally 
with reference to method, the academic work not differ- 
ing materially from that of the elementary schools. In 
the American universities there are occasional courses 
that are incidental ; in but two or three are there 
systematic courses. In the German universities the 
courses are elaborate, and there are but one or two 
in the whole empire without a chair devoted to this 
science. 

Out of the chaotic state from which geography teach- 
ing in this country has been emerging, there are gradu- 
ally taking form courses of study that in time will 
develop into most excellent schemes for better instruc- 
tion in the subject. 

By common consent, the first three years of work is 
devoted to nature study, much of which is observational 
geography pure and simple, or else is closely akin to it. 
This arrangement is practically one of necessity, for, 
until the pupil has learned to read, observational study 



1/6 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

is the only work that can be done. This sort of work 
should not be limited to the primary grades, however; it 
should be carried on throughout the entire course. In 
another chapter there are given general outlines from 
which a systematic course may be elaborated. 

In most courses of study, descriptive geography very 
properly takes the first place of importance during the 
fourth, fifth, and sixth years. During this period the 
pupil becomes acquainted with the various peoples and 
places of the earth, and in this time probably most of 
the memory tasks are mastered. During these years, 
too, there is presented, not only an earth of continents 
and oceans, but also one of planetary features. As to 
which one of these ideas logically takes precedence de- 
pends upon the judgment of the teacher. The subject 
is one upon which alleged experts have spent years of 
wrangling, and the solution must be left to the pedlers 
of method fads. A sensible teacher will adopt which- 
ever plan he can best use. 

In the last two years of the course (if eight years be 
given to the study) the work takes an additional factor ; 
namely, the industrial or economic side. That is, the 
study of peoples and places is broadened until it 
includes the employments and products as well. The 
two last, the pupil will learn, are direct results of en- 
vironment, that is, of climate, topography, and position. 
In the closing years of the course in the grammar 
school there should also be plenty of descriptive and 



THE COURSE OF STUDY 1/7 

observational work, the latter mainly field exercises, 
but the economic side should take the first place in 
importance. 

In quite a number of schools, especially in the cities, 
there has been a disposition to close the course in 
geography at the end of the seventh year. A more 
inexcusable blunder could not be made ; were the cut 
in time made by omitting geography in the fourth year 
instead of the eighth, the effect would not be half so 
bad. The problems involved in the modern aspect of 
geography are far too difiicult to be met by seventh- 
year pupils. Many of these problems require maturity 
of mind that comes only with years, and they are best 
undertaken after the pupil has reached the high school. 
The advocates of what is sometimes termed the " new 
geography " insist upon the correlation of geography 
with the various economies of life ; yet many of them 
have deliberately cut off the study at the very time 
when its educational value can be appreciated. 

The position of physical geography is somewhat 
anomalous; in fact, it would not be far out of the way 
to say that it has no position at all in most schools. In 
many high schools it is placed in the last year of the 
course, after the pupil has completed the work in botany 
and zoology. Now, these studies are intimately related 
to geography. The distribution of life, and in many 
cases the external and structural forms of the individual, 
are resultants of geographic envhonment. They will be 



1/8 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

best understood, therefore, after a good course in physi- 
cal geography has been completed, and not before it 
is undertaken. 

Until within recent years the study of physical geog- 
raphy meant merely the study of fixed, unchanging 
forms. Then there came a period when the physio- 
graphic side was brought into prominence, the genesis 
and evolution of the form being studied in detail. This 
was a very great stride in advance. But not only does 
every geographic form leave its imprint on the econ- 
omies of life ; in many instances it determines those 
same economies, making them possible or impossible as 
the case may be. In view of this fact, the science of 
physical geography latterly has grown to be three-sided ; 
namely, the physical form, its operation or evolution, 
and the consequent bearing upon life. Most of the 
problems of geography when studied from this three- 
fold aspect are within the intellectual grasp of high 
school pupils. But unless this third side, the application 
of the principles to life, is emphasized, the study does 
not reach its full value. 

There are many excellent courses of study in geog- 
raphy now in use, but in general they have been over- 
loaded instead of enriched, and therefore they are not 
well balanced. In many instances, if the course as 
planned could be distributed through eleven years 
instead of eight, they would be far more efficient. 
The fact that an overloaded course cannot be digested 



THE COURSE OF STUDY 1 79 

and assimilated ought to be apparent, but evidently 
it is not ; and this is the chief criticism against many 
of them. Local conditions must largely determine the 
character of the course, and for that reason, an attempt 
to present a model in this chapter would be manifestly 
out of place.^ A course that would be well-nigh per- 
fect in one locality, might have but little value in 
another. One thing, however, is certain ; experience 
and experiment are both necessary in making an 
effective course of study. A good course cannot be 
formulated without experience as to the needs of the 
locality ; moreover, it must evolve gradually. Experi- 
ment will determine the what ; experience will demon- 
strate the question of fitness. 

And having provided a suitable course, there comes 
a still more difficult matter : the superintendent and 
his principals must train the assistant teachers to the 
use of it. The general training that the teacher may 
have received in the academy, the normal school, or 
the university will be invaluable, but it will not take 
the place of the local work. For this, a certain 
amount of field work and special reading are essen- 
tial. They should be made obligatory, and they 
ought also to be carried on under the supervision of 
a competent director. 

1 For an excellent example, the reader is referred to the course pre- 
pared for the public schools of Stockton, Cal. 



CHAPTER XI 

Observational and Field Work 

One of the best features that has come into 
modern methods of education is the disposition to 
stimulate the observational powers of the child. In 
the times now happily going by, the child was a sec- 
ondary matter — something on whom the psychological 
presentation of a given subject was to be practised, 
the main thing being the method by which it was 
accomplished. As a rule, the child was a passive 
entity — a sort of receptacle into which a measured 
amount of graded and useful misinformation was to 
be ingested. Outside of the practice work in writing 
lineal miles of equations and reducing fractions to 
uncommon denominators, there was but little chance 
for the child to cultivate his activities: indeed, beyond 
his sporadic outbursts of mischief, it was apparently 
forgotten that the child possessed intellectual activities. 

Even in the study of the sciences the activity of 
the pupil usually did not go beyond seeing what the 
instructor did. In botany it was the teacher and not 
the pupil who pulled the flower to pieces — and inci- 
dentally it seemed that the plant had no other mis- 
sion than to be dismembered — the pupil merely 

1 80 



OBSERVATIONAL AND FIELD WORK l8l 

looked on, or was supposed to do so. Or, if it was 
to be determined whether a leaf was lanceolate or 
sagittate, the fact was as likely determined from a 
picture of a leaf as from the leaf itself. It rarely 
occurred to the teacher that the synthesis of a plant 
was more important than its analysis. Only the Sissy 
Jupes ^ver discovered that there was an ethical side 
to the plant, and that its wholeness was of greater 
value than the aggregate of its pieces. 

In mineralogy the pupils were expected to know 
something about the systems of crystallization, and 
frequently they were required to memorize the chemi- 
cal formulas of various minerals ; it was necessary to 
know that quartz was SiOg, but to require one to 
select a piece of quartz from a number of minerals 
was scarcely less than an imposition. ^ A pupil ten 
years of age may easily learn the blow-pipe reactions 
of all the common ores of the economic metals and 
of many minerals, but it is only in recent years that 
any attempts in this direction have been made. 

In zoology the instruction was even more meagre ; 
the pupil memorized the classification of animals, and 
probably remembered that they were divided into birds, 
bugs, beasts, and batrachians. The idea of a biological 
basis in the study of zoology and botany in the main, 
however, was considered preposterous, and laboratory 

^ This experience befell Dr. Emerson E. White, when a student at 
college. 



1 82 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

work was scarcely dreamed of. About the only redeem- 
ing feature of the work was the fact that many pupils 
became interested in shell collections. 

In geology the chief end of the study was a memoriz- 
ing of the order of strata, and the learning of the names 
of fossils. The redeeming feature in this case, too, 
was the collection of the fossils of the neighborhood. 
Dynamic and physiographic geology were very gingerly 
handled, and in general it was thought that the whole 
subject was born of the devil. Physical geography 
was looked upon as a useless luxury, and in some cases 
the study was put under the same ban as geology. 

Now, in the course of time, it came about that the 
science teachers of the secondary schools, and not a few 
of the colleges, were drawn from the young men and 
women whose preparation for their work covered about 
the same ground noted in the preceding paragraphs ; 
and the surprising thing about it is the fact that, from 
the theoretical side, they knew their subjects pretty 
thoroughly. Much reading had made them familiar 
with everything save the knowledge that comes with 
objective study. 

But when the students, who had prepared under 
these teachers, entered the university and had reached 
the place where they were compelled to get information 
first hand, that is, from sources other than books or the 
teacher's stock in trade, there came in the course of 
each a deadlock. As a result, there was the choice 



OBSERVATIONAL AND FIELD WORK 1 83 

between failure, and the extra work required to culti- 
vate faculties that hitherto had been dormant ; namely, 
the faculties of seeing and interpreting. 

In the long and somewhat bitter discussions that 
were brought about by this state of affairs, there was 
one thing that the university never failed to demand ; 
namely, that the faculty of observation should receive 
cultivation as well as that of memory ; indeed, this is 
one of the few reforms in education that have come 
from the university and not from the elementary school. 
Thus it has come to be recognized that the knowledge 
a child gets by discovery is worth far more than that 
which is obtained by word of mouth. And so the 
demand for observational work which started within 
the university reached downward step by step through 
the grades of the high and grammar schools until it 
occupied an established and fundamental place even 
in the curriculum of the lowest primary work. 

The observational work called, perhaps unwisely. 
Nature Study is now a recognized feature in almost all 
schools. Granting that in the hands of novices and 
poorly trained teachers there is more or less wasteful, 
injudicious, and even ridiculous work, the results, never- 
theless, have been distinctively good. Even were one 
to assume that errors of statement, wrong conclusions, 
and bungling methods marked every step, the work 
would still be beneficial, simply from the fact that the 
pupil is enlarging his powers of observation and is be- 



1 84 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

coming a discoverer. And inasmuch as that will be the 
sort of work expected of him in life, why not prepare 
him for it in the school ? The reading method might 
fit a young man to be a private secretary ; the discovery 
method fits him to be the employer of private secre- 
taries. Anything that gives one self-power to discover 
and acquire knowledge is good ; anything that gives 
the teacher self-knowledge in the place of a reading 
acquaintance is equally good. There is a wonderful 
strength that comes from the knowledge of contact ; 
it is as solid gold compared with paper tinsel. 

Now it has come to be a pretty well established 
principle that botany, zoology, mineralogy, physiog- 
raphy, geology, and, to a slight extent, chemistry and 
physics, have a geographic basis. In general, we may 
call them differentiated geography. Animals and plants 
depend for their existence on conditions of environ- 
ment that are distinctly geographic. Indeed, it would 
not be a very great breach of the truth to claim that a 
fish is a fish ; a bird, a bird ; a lizard, a lizard ; or even 
a camel, a camel ; or a seal, a seal, solely because of 
its geographic environment. If there were no creeks, 
ponds, and impounded waters, there could be no ducks ; 
were the atmosphere composed of hydrogen, birds would 
of necessity require an expanse of wing fifteen times 
as great as at present ; or if the air were one hundred- 
fold denser than at present, the wings would become 
fins. There is but a single degree between the fish 



OBSERVATIONAL AND FIELD WORK 1 85 

and the bird, and that is the density of the medium 
in which it moves. 

All nutrition is derived from the earth. Moreover, in 
studying other life forms, we are studying the things 
that are essential to the life of mankind ; and we can- 
not study them logically without making geographic 
environment the basis of research. 

But it is evident that only a very few facts in the 
study of life forms can be appreciated, and only a few 
laws can be understood, by the younger pupils. It is 
manifestly unwise, therefore, to attempt any sort of 
work that cannot be assimilated. Judgment on the 
part of the teacher, therefore, is requisite in knowing 
what to select and what to omit in each of the various 
grades of work. 

The study of rocks and minerals also is very closely 
related to the work of geography in the grades, and it 
is well to emphasize that the coarse fragments of rock 
waste as they are borne downward, are ground finer 
and finer. At last, by admixture with vegetable matter, 
and through certain chemical changes, they become the 
soil that yields its nutrition to life. Rock-formation 
can be illustrated by means at the command of every 
teacher. Furnace clinkers show the principles by 
which most igneous rocks have been formed, and sand 
or fine clay shaken in a glass with lime water shows 
the process by which sedimentary rocks are formed. 
If pupils are taught to identify clay, slate, limestones, 



1 86 



THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 



and marble, sandstones, lava, basalt (or trap), and gran- 
ite, they will have a fair working knowledge of about 
all the economic rocks with which lay people need to 
be familiar.^ Of these, from three or four to a dozen 
specimens should be studied, and the study should in- 
clude not only the question of the identification of each, 
but also its economic use. 

A rather more extensive knowledge of minerals is 
advisable, and these, on the whole, are more easily 
identified from their physical appearance than are 
the rocks. The specialists in science excepted, there 
are few men and women who require a working 
knowledge of more than thirty mineral species.^ In 
one way or another, most of these enter into the 
affairs of life. All but half a dozen can be recog- 
nized by their physical properties, i.e. color, hardness, 
streak, and lustre; in the great majority, moreover, 
/v ./' the blowpipe and humid reactions are so exceedingly 

■1 The most difficult to determine are the highly metamorphic rocks that 
ecede those of the palaeozoic era. 

2 Nearly all of the following are readily attainable for purposes of 
study : — 



Diamond 


____ Turquoise 


Sul>phur 




Cannel coal 


^uby 


""Hematite 


Asbestos 




Lignite coal 


Sapphire 


Magnetite 


Talc 




Flint 


Emerald 


Pyrites 


Mica 




Carnelian 


jGarnet 


Franklinite 


Felspar 




Quartz crystals 


Amethyst 


Argentite 


Anthracite 


coal 


Sea sand 


Opal 


Malachite 


Bituminous 


coal 


Agate 



OBSERVATIONAL AND FIELD WORK 1 87 

simple that the determinations can be made with cer- 
tainty by pupils in the grammar grades ; a compre- 
hensive knowledge of chemistry is not needed in order 
to make them. 

It is hardly necessary to add that local conditions 
should govern in the study of minerals and rocks, 
and that first place should be given always to the 
species of the locality. A moment's thought will 
convince one that the presence of any one of the 
species noted, in workable quantities, has much to 
do with the industrial, and therefore the historical, 
development of the locality ; thus, the discovery of 
iron in the southern Appalachian Mountains created 
both a social and an industrial revolution in the 
locality ; similar results follovved the discovery of the 
precious metals in the West, and that of copper and 
iron in northern Michigan. 

In the ordinary work in geography there are abun- 
dant opportunities for very practical laboratory and 
field work. During the first years the nature study 
provided in the courses of most schools makes a most 
excellent beginning to the systematic study of geog- 
raphy, and in general it is the medium through which 
children will best learn to appreciate geography. In- 
cidentally most teachers will discover that the pupils 
who find great difficulty in book study are apt to be 
the best observers and most independent thinkers in 
field work. During the third year the geographic side 



1 88 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

of the nature study may be emphasized, and a certain 
amount of systematic work may be undertaken. The 
amount and character of this, however, must be gov- 
erned by local conditions, and the discretion of the 
teacher should determine both the character and the 
amount. In the following paragraphs the topics are 
in the light of suggestions ; they furnish abundant 
material for individual work, but it goes without saying 
that the outlines given should not be slavishly fol- 
lowed. From these outlines, however, a good working 
course adapted to almost any locality may be prepared. 
The book work for each year must be governed by 
the requirements of the course of study. 

WORK OF THE FOURTH YEAR 

In the fourth year, about the period in which the text- 
book is used for the first time, the field work should be 
made systematic, taking the topics that commonly are 
included in "home geography," that is, the geography 
that may be studied in the vicinity of the home and 
the schoolhouse. For individual study the investigation 
of the things that may be observed about the pupil's 
home should be encouraged ; for class work the topics 
are best suggested by the school grounds. In general, 
the home work should be assigned by the teacher. At 
first, accuracy of work and correctness of results should 
not be expected. The first result to be obtained is a 
cultivation of the pupil's self-reliance, and the chief part 



OBSERVATIONAL AND FIELD WORK 1 89 

of the teacher's work is to encourage and not discourage. 
The following topics will not be too difficult. 

Position and Direction. — Discuss the position of well- 
known objects or places in the vicinity, so as to lead to 
the need of a knowledge of direction. This will gradu- 
ally suggest such topics as the sky line or horizon, not- 
ing that the horizon changes as one goes from place to 
place ; position of the sun on the horizon at sunrise ; 
at sunset ; east, the direction toward sunrise ; west, 
the direction toward sunset ; develop " north " and 
"south" from their relation to sunrise and sunset; let 
the pupils discover the direction of the noon shadow ; 
require a list showing the direction of well-known objects 
or places from the schoolhouse and thereby show the 
needs of intermediate directions, as northeast, southwest, 
etc. Encourage the pupil to establish the direction of 
well-known objects from his home. Local excursions 
or walks should be encouraged, and a sketch map should 
be made showing the direction taken and the principal 
objects on the right or the left of the road or path. 

In the foregoing, as well as the succeeding individual 
wor^, do not expect great accuracy at first ; that comes 
only with experience and time. 

Distance. — The measurement and estimation of dis- 
tance during the year should be governed more or less 
by the work in arithmetic. It may be assumed that 
pupils doing fourth-year work are familiar with the 
ordinary units, the inch, foot, and yard ; a brief test of 



190 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

the matter may be advisable, however. It is needless 
to add that the laboratory results, that is, the ability to 
estimate closely, is the most important part so far as 
geographic work is concerned. 

The general trend of this topic should be distinctly 
geographic, leaving the question of compound numbers 
to the arithmetic class. Pupils should become ac- 
quainted with the mile and its subdivisions in a general 
way. In most cities the blocks or squares make con- 
venient standards by which to estimate the mile, and in 
the country section-line roads are one mile apart. As 
a general suggestion, objects one mile apart will furnish 
the most impressive and practical illustrations. 

In the latter part of the year's work a few easy les- 
sons in making maps on scale may be attempted ; they 
should be of the most elementary character, however. 
It is very easy to go beyond the pupil's ability to under- 
stand problems of this kind, and such a mistake, of 
course, would be fatal to success. 

Globe Study. — Whatever of mathematical geography 
is undertaken at this time — and pratically but very 
little is needed — should be done with the globe. A 
knowledge of the causes that result in the succession 
of day and night is essential, and the explanation of 
them involves a knowledge of the terms " pole " and 
"axis." 

When the pupil becomes acquainted with the dis- 
tribution of land and water on the earth, this should 



OBSERVATIONAL AND FIELD WORK 191 

also be learned from the globe, and it should be 
taught so thoroughly that the pupil has a mental 
photograph of the outlines of the great land masses, 
and their relative size and position. When the prin- 
cipal features of outline are studied, the necessities 
of relative position and direction are manifest, and 
so parallels and meridians are drawn upon the globe 
in order to determine position. i^See also Chapter VI I ^ 

The pupil has already learned that there are some 
places on the earth where it is always warm ; others, 
where it is perpetually cold ; and still others in which 
periods of warmth and cold alternate. These locali- 
ties, it may now be learned, form zones of climate. 
In bringing out this fact it is not necessary to assume 
that the zones are bounded by the polar and the 
tropical circles, for they are not. It is not necessary 
to learn anything about these circles unless the course 
of study stupidly makes it mandatory. The inclina- 
tion of the earth's axis should be shown incidentally, 
but it is not necessary to worry about the plane of 
the ecliptic. 

Weather Study. - — It is a good plan to carry on 
regular weather observations, and the pupils should 
become familiar with dew, frost, fog, cloud, etc. The 
artificial formation of dew is always an interesting 
experiment, and the latter should be repeated until 
the pupils are satisfied that the moisture does not 
come from within the freezing mixture. A mixture 



192 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

of salt and ice, or ice alone, in a covered vessel of 
polished metal will illustrate the principle. A tin cup 
is far better than a glass tumbler for the purpose. 

For most of the work of this grade it is the obser- 
vation of facts and not their explanation that is re- 
quired. The fact that dew may result from the 
chilling of the atmosphere is essential, but the ex- 
planation is not, nor can it be, understood by fourth- 
year pupils. 

During this year a simple weather record may be 
kept, and a public record should be made by pupils 
designated for the purpose. The object, of course, is 
not the having of a record, but the practice of mak- 
ing it. 

Field Work. — The field work should be adapted to 
the local conditions, emphasizing the topographic fea- 
tures that occur in the vicinity; those not within reach 
may be illustrated by pictures and by the use of the 
moulding board. Most of the horizontal forms may be 
found along the shores of the nearest body of water. 

The problems and processes involved in drainage 
are illustrated in almost every school yard. With in- 
telligent direction on the part of the teacher the 
pupil may be led to discover the results of cloud 
gathering and rainfall. It may not be wise to dwell 
on the details of percolation, transportation, and de- 
position, nor even to mention these names. The 
fact that the water of rain and melting snow gathers 



OBSERVATIONAL AND FIELD WORK 1 93 

into rills, brooks, and rivers, and carries rock waste 
to lower levels, should be thoroughly impressed, and 
this is best accomplished when the pupil discovers 
it by his own efforts. 

The pupil should also become familiar with the soils 
of the neighborhood, and there are few localities in 
which sandy, clayey, and loamy soils are not found. 
The rocks of the vicinity should also be studied, so 
that they may be determined readily by their physical 
characteristics. 

Economic Geography. — It goes without saying that 
the economic geography of the year should be devoted 
mainly to the products of the locality. If agricultural, 
where and in what way do they go, or is any inter- 
mediate process of manufacture required } If a manu- 
facturing centre, whence do the raw materials come, 
and where is the market for the manufactured articles .-' 
If the locality is a centre of foreign commerce, the 
decks and holds of incoming vessels, and the docks 
at Vv^hich the cargoes are discharged will yield a great 
fund of information. 

WORK OF THE FIFTH YEAR 

Position and Direction. — Review or test the work of 
the preceding year. Note the position of the sun's 
setting on the 20th of September, December, March, 
and June each, or on a clear day nearest these dates. 
Inasmuch as this is most conveniently done at home, 



194 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

each pupil must note his own horizon markers. At 
school the length of the noon shadow may be meas- 
ured on each of these dates. 

In addition, the mutual relation of the earth's axis 
and the north star may be explained. The teacher 
may direct the pupils concerning the manner in which 
the pole star is found, but in general the pupils 
themselves should locate it. 

Mathematical Geography. — Review the work of the 
preceding year, using the globe and such diagrams as 
may suggest themselves. In using the globe, habitually 
keep the axis pointing toward the north and at its 
proper inclination. Explain the use of meridians and 
parallels, and note the position of the prime meridian. 
Practically all reckonings are now based upon the 
Greenwich meridian — not from necessity, but as a 
matter of convenience. Teach the position of the 
tropical and polar circles if the course of study requires 
it, but omit the common error that they are the 
boundaries of zones of climate. 

A few general comparisons of latitude and longitude 
should be learned at this time ; for instance : Which 
is the farther west, Chicago or Valparaiso, S. A. ? Is 
the greater part of South America north or south of 
the equator ^ Is the greater part of Africa north or 
south of the equator.^ Name the states of the United 
States that are near to or intersected by the 45th 
parallel ; the countries of Europe ; the comparative 



OBSERVATIONAL AND FIELD WORK 1 95 

latitude of Manila and Honolulu ; of Cairo and New 
Orleans ; the meridian distance between the eastern 
and western extremes of the main body of the United 
States, including Alaska. These and similar problems 
should be studied from the globe and not the map. 
The pupils should be taught to determine latitude 
and longitude from the map as an exercise in mechani- 
cal measurement rather than one of comparisons of 
latitude and longitude ; for the latter the globe should 
be used wherever possible. 

Map Drawing. — The most practical work in map draw- 
ing is the off-hand sketch made from memory. This, as 
has been explained in another chapter, is the most feasible 
and least expensive way of accomplishing the memory 
work of geography. Some of the elementary features 
of map reading may be undertaken. Use the moulding 
board or the model whenever the circumstances demand. 

Out-of-door Studies. — Review the field work of the 
preceding year, taking as topics the topographic features 
of the vicinity. The pupil has already learned the 
names and character of the principal vertical and hori- 
zontal forms, and has also become acquainted with 
physiographic agents ; the teacher may now direct the 
pupil's attention to the discovery of their mutual rela- 
tions, that is, the fact that these forms are shaped 
largely by wind and by water in its various forms. The 
emphasis of course should be placed on the geographic 
features within the pupil's horizon. An understanding 



196 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

of these makes the comprehension of other forms com- 
paratively easy. In many instances effective laboratory 
work may be accomplished by the study of pictures. 

WORK OF THE SIXTH YEAR 

During this year the classes of most graded schools 
finish the elementary text-book. In general, it is an 
error of judgment to undertake the advanced book 
before the middle or end of this year; it is too diffi- 
cult and is not intended for pupils of this grade. 

Review the field and laboratory work of the preced- 
ing year, taking such topics in advance as may be 
comprehended. By this time the pupil should have 
discovered that geographic features are intimately con- 
nected with the activities of life ; that level lands are 
best adapted to farming, good harbors to commerce ; 
that manufactures concentrate at places where coal or 
water power is abundant, etc. 

It is to be expected that pupils have become familiar 
with all the ordinary terms of geography ; it will be 
well to discuss some of the following, including in 
addition the meaning or meanings of any terms that 
are purely local: ford, "wash," "dry run," "sink," pot- 
hole, current, channel, delta, estuary, bluff, flood plain, 
"bore," " slack water," etc. ; peak, " hogback," "butte," 
divide, dune, pass, canon, terrace, foothills, etc. ; canal, 
dam, dike, levee, lock, ship canal, ship channel, buoy, 
range light, and others that may suggest themselves. 



OBSERVATIONAL AND FIELD WORK 1 97 

The study of forestry does not always have the atten- 
tion it deserves, and the plan of a systematic observa- 
tion of the more common trees is to be commended. 
The observations should include the time and manner 
of putting forth their leaves, the time of flov/ering and 
the character of the flowers, the character of the fruit 
and seed, the time of shedding the leaves, comparative 
and actual, and the various other changes that occur. 
Not only should a complete list of the kinds of forestry 
be made, but pupils should know the characteristics 
by which a tree may be named on sight. The observa- 
tions on each kind should be at short intervals during 
the season of budding and leafing, and should extend 
until the leaves are shed. 

In general, the work of this and the preceding years 
should be qualitative, that is, in the work of discovery. 
The teacher will accomplish the best results when the 
pupils are so led that they learn the facts by their own 
research ; and, as a rule, a pupil ought not to be told 
anything he can learn by his own efforts. The great 
value of the field and laboratory work is the preparation 
it gives the pupil for the systematic laboratory work of 
succeeding years. 

WORK OF THE SEVENTH YEAR 

Map Work. — The map drawing of this year should 
include the necessary training in the off-hand sketch 
maps that are needed for almost every recitation. For 



198 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

the statistical work required, such as products, historical 
development, physical, and other features, etc., graphic 
charts should be constructed on about every possible 
occasion. If elaborately finished maps seem necessary 
in the judgment of the teacher, a map of the county or 
the township will be found a more practical and valua- 
ble exercise than one of a region with which the pupils 
are not likely to become familiar. If the pupils of each 
township were to prepare a number of township maps 
and exchange them with the various schools, each dis- 
trict school might then have the basis from which a 
very complete county map might be constructed. 

Map reading is an important factor in geography 
study, and where contour maps are employed many of 
the facts now learned from the text — and as quickly 
forgotten — may be acquired by discovery. The pupils 
that have learned the movement of the heat belt north 
and south will readily judge by the latitude of the 
county whether it belongs in zones of perpetual cold, 
of perpetual warmth, or of alternating heat and cold. 
An inspection of latitude will suffice to show the wind 
belt in which the region is situated ; and so, in gen- 
eral, the climatic conditions of a county may be easily- 
discovered from the map. 

The character of the coast shows whether the latter 
is adapted to commerce, or whether it is bordered by 
the spits and barrier beaches that forbid commerce. 
The contours of the map indicate whether the surface 



OBSERVATIONAL AND FIELD WORK 1 99 

is level or rugged, high or low. Extreme aridity of 
climate is shown by the earmarks already described 
in a previous chapter, and the earmarks are usually 
infallible. All these and many other facts should be 
learned from the map, afterward to be corroborated by 
the text. No cut-and-dried scheme or list of questions 
can be presented for this work ; the teacher's judgment 
should dictate. 

Rocks and Minerals. — The work along this line 
should include a collection of the rocks and minerals, 
and a study of the soils of the vicinity when practicable. 
The pupils should be trained to identify both minerals 
and soil components by their physical properties, and 
they should also learn their economic uses. In the 
schools of the larger cities, the study of the materials 
used in buildings and road pavements will prove very 
practical object lessons. Other topics will be sug- 
gested by local conditions. 

Animal and Vegetable Life. — The work suggested 
in these topics should include the collection of local 
specimens and such others as may be deemed practi- 
cable. • The pupils should be able to identify the 
friends as well as the enemies of mankind. In 
the extermination of such pests as the codlin moth, 
the gypsy moth, and the tree caterpillar, school 
children have proved a wonderfully efificient factor. 

In making and preparing such collections the work 
of the teacher should be directed in two ways : first. 



200 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

to instruct the pupil in preparing and mounting the 
specimens neatly ; secondly, in leading him to habits 
of accurate observation. 

It is hardly necessary to add 'that the study of the 
commercial products of animal and vegetable life of 
the vicinity should be an important topic, especial 
attention being paid to their origin, manufacture, and 
ultimate distribution. 

Physiographic Geography. — Review the work of the 
preceding year. By the use of pictures, diagrams, or 
other devices, develop the fact that mountain ranges 
are broken and greatly worn folds in the rock layers ; 
that in most instances the intermontane valleys are 
the flood plains of rivers which have been filled with 
fine rock waste worn from the mountain slopes and car- 
ried into the valley by the rivers themselves. Impress 
the full meaning of such terms as "basin," "divide," 
etc., by directing the pupil to draw on the map a line 
around a river and its branches ; it is in this way 
only that the real significance of these features can 
be obtained from the ordinary map. When necessary, 
do not hesitate to use the moulding board to aid in 
the illustration of topographic forms. 

For field work it will be well to study carefully 
the physiographic features of the neighborhood. In 
following exercises of this character there will be no 
lack of material ; even the large cities are full of 
examples of the work of running water, wind, and 



OBSERVATIONAL AND FIELD WORK 201 

vegetation. Many localities are famous each for a 
certain character of physiography : thus in New York 
and Boston the work of glacial ice is very impressive; 
in Chicago the work of wind in making sand dunes, 
and the combined action of wind and wave and ice 
in forming shore bars, is prominent ; in Cincinnati 
the work of rivers in forming broad valleys and flood 
plains furnishes excellent object lessons. 

Weather Observation. — In the weather study of this 
year the quantitative element should predominate ; 
that is, the pupil should be taught to record observa- 
tions properly, to make averages, to read the ther- 
mometer and barometer accurately, and to use the 
rain gauge. 

EIGHTH YEAR 

In the eighth year the work of the previous year 
should be tested and reviewed. By this time the 
application of physiographic and climatic features to 
life and its industries should be made the central 
point of study. In meteorology, the daily weather 
maps should be studied first with reference to the 
manner of their construction, and then as the means 
of making forecasts — an exercise by no means so 
difficult as it appears. When the pupil has learned 
that the storms of the United States (the tropical 
cyclones excepted) are preceded by easterly and fol- 
lowed by westerly winds, and that the storm area (or 



202 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

area of low barometer) moves across the continent 
from west to east, the chief principles of weather 
forecasting will have been mastered. 

During this year's work map reading should be a 
frequent exercise, and for this purpose the maps pub- 
lished by the United States Geological Survey should 
be employed.^ Inasmuch as the contour map is un- 
questionably the map of the future, there is no better 
place than the school in which to learn how to inter- 
pret its meaning. For the critical study of these maps 
a dozen or more sheets should be provided, including, 
if possible, areas with which the pupils are familiar. 
It is hardly necessary to add that such map study is 
not designed as an aid to memory work ; it is intended 
solely for the purpose of enabling the pupil to read 
from a conventionalized form the various features of 
drainage, climate, and surface conditions. In discuss- 
ing the commercial products of a region, the plan of 
graphic charting mentioned in Chapter IX will be 
found almost indispensable, and should be employed 
wherever possible. Thus a comparative study of the 
western limit of wheat and cotton, with the rainfall and 
population maps, brings out mutual relations that other- 
wise would hardly be apparent. 

Comparative values expressed by diagrams appeal 
more strongly to the mind than do expressions in 

^ A complete catalogue of the sheets engraved up to the present time 
can be obtained on application. 



OBSERVATIONAL AND FIELD WORK 203 

figures ; they have a very decided educative value, 
moreover, when the diagrams are constructed by the 
pupils. The mere fact that the pupil constructs them, 
imparts to them a staying quality in the mind they 
could not otherwise acquire. In the study of the 
topography of a region it is often essential to consult 
a profile of the region in question. With a contour 
map in possession this is a very easy matter, for each 
contour represents a definite elevation ; therefore by 
laying off the horizontal scale in miles, and the vertical 
scale in feet, it is a matter of only two or three minutes 
to make the profile. One may, of course, study ready- 
made profiles, but their value is largely in the effort 
of the pupil, and not that of some one else. In work 
of this kind it is, of course, necessary to remember 
one's own neighborhood ; the study of geography, like 
charity, begins at home. 

A more interesting matter is study of the products of 
a region with reference to their geographic environment. 
There are always instances of products that will "pay" 
in one locality, but not in another ; and quite frequently 
the reason therefor is geographic. For instance, wheat 
growing is financially successful in Minnesota, but not 
in Connecticut. Sugar-cane and cotton can be grown 
in Louisiana, but not in Montana. In fact, one may 
take the entire list of products, and in each case the 
area of production is restricted. In most instances 
the restricting barriers are geographic, and the inves- 



\ 



204 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

tigation of the operating causes is a most practical 
study. 

A study of the topographic features of town, county, 
or state, with reference to their bearing on the activi- 
ties of Hfe, will be a highly instructive line of investi- 
gation. Thus, a mountain range may yield mineral 
and metallic products ; it may afford grazing, and 
therefore be a stock range ; it may be an impassable 
barrier that prevents free intercommunication. An 
intermontane valley may be fertile, and therefore 
densely peopled, or it may be deficient in soil and 
sparsely settled ; in either case the problem to be 
solved is contained in the question — Why.? If the 
topographic feature is a pass or " railroad gap," the 
problem will involve an investigation, not only of 
the products that are shipped through it, but whence 
they come and whither they go. So, too, a river may 
be a navigable highway of commerce ; it may be a 
torrential stream that furnishes water power ; it may 
have a broad cultivable flood plain, or it may have 
an estuary that forms a harbor for foreign commerce ; 
obviously the proper thing is the study of the stream 
from a utilitarian aspect, and when this is done, it 
will be apparent that the utilitarian side is based upon 
principles that are strictly geographic. 

The suggestions in the foregoing pages of this chap- 
ter are not offered as a course of study ; but the 
teacher will find therein the material for supplement- 



OBSERVATIONAL AND FIELD WORK 20$ 

ing the prescribed book work, and also for rounding 
out and enriching any course. Necessary as the 
observational, laboratory, and field work may be, it 
-cannot take the place of a certain amount of book 
study and general reading. No scholar, however 
broad and comprehensive his learning, can acquire all 
his information by observation ; from the very nature 
of the case one must get the greater part by reading 
or by methods that are second hand. 



CHAPTER XII 

The Teacher's Preparation 

The most difficult task that confronts the grade 
teacher of geography is the matter of preparation 
for teaching the subject. The old methods of in- 
struction that involved but little more than a moder- 
ate familiarity with map questions and locations is 
rapidly becoming a thing of the past. In a few locali- 
ties this sort of thing still obtains for the reason that 
the only end to which education applies is the ability 
to pass the compulsory examinations ; and there are 
likewise other places in which public sentiment is 
indifferent, or perhaps not educated to the difference 
between good and poor teaching. Throughout a very 
large part of the country, especially west of the Appa- 
lachian Mountains, geography teaching is in a condi- 
tion of rapid evolution, and the ideas concerning the 
knowledge that is best are undergoing a very posi- 
tive crystallization. That the teacher of to-day de- 
mands a broader and a better equipment than ever 
before goes without saying. Let us note some of 
the essentials. 

First of all, one should possess general knowledge 
of the peoples of other parts of the world and the 

206 



THE TEACHER'S PREPARATION 20/ 

countries in which they Uve. This much is expected 
of every intelligent person. In the main, this knowl- 
edge must be acquired by reading ; but if the teacher 
can spend even a single vacation among foreign peo- 
ples, in a foreign land, the help will be very great, 
and of the most practical kind. It will put a life 
and meaning into the knowledge acquired by reading 
that cannot possibly be gained otherwise. In the 
study of peoples and countries it is imperative that 
the teacher shall have a broader acquaintance with 
the literature of travel than that afforded by the text- 
book itself. For this purpose several of the recent 
text-books in geography contain excellent lists of 
collateral reading. In general, however, the teacher 
should depend upon the needs of the case and the 
exercise of judgment in the selection of such reading. 
Certainly, it should be broader and more exhaustive 
than that suggested for pupils' work. One must bear 
in mind, however, that the ability to see the world 
through the child's eyes is a very necessary achieve- 
ment ; perhaps this faculty may be a gift, but it is 
also one that can be acquired. In other words, one 
part of the teacher's preparation is to take such 
material as may be available and put it into the 
form that can best be assimilated by the pupils. 

In the second place, the teacher must become 
familiar with physiographic processes and the agents 
that are responsible for them. To this end a course 



208 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

in laboratory and field work is imperative, and there 
must be plenty of it. One must bear in mind that 
a mere sight acquaintance with a topographic form is 
not physiography. The neighborhood accessible may 
not present a great variety of topographic forms, but 
there are few localities in which illustrations of physi- 
ographic processes are not abundant. About every 
variety of erosion, corrasion, transportation, and depo- 
sition may be found on a rainy day within a radius of 
half a mile of the schoolhouse. 

Not only should the physiographic processes and 
their agents be observed, but their results as shown 
in rock formations ought also to be studied. Most 
likely the material of this part of the work will not 
be abundant, and if not one must depend for the 
rest on reading in order to get the necessary in- 
formation. All this is right and proper, provided 
that one does not lean wholly on reading in order to 
get the information. In the experience of life people 
must deal, not with verbal or written descriptions, but 
with things ; it is therefore the objective rather than 
the descriptive side of geography that should be 
strongly emphasized. The latter has a definite place, 
it is true, but the place should be most decidedly a 
secondary one. 

The field work should be that of the neighborhood, 
and should include a pretty close study of all the 
forms and processes that appear to have given it shape. 



THE TEACHER'S PREPARATION 2O9 

A good working knowledge of the physical geography 
of the neighborhood is necessary in two ways. Not 
only must the teacher draw upon it for illustrations 
required in the class room, but it is highly necessary 
in mastering the general principles of geography. For 
instance, a student may have become thoroughly ac- 
quainted with the illustration of some physiographic 
feature or process without knowing much about the 
general principles involved ; but when the latter are 
investigated in their broadest relation, the student has 
the mental picture of the illustration already at hand. 
Moreover, it often happens that the actual field in- 
vestigation of one form or process renders the descrip- 
tive study of another quite as easy to comprehend as 
would be the actual field study of it. 

The prescribed course in nature study will furnish 
many hints concerning the observational work, and 
therefore the teacher should become not only familiar, ' 
but expert, in everything the teaching of which is 
a part of the course of study in geography. Certainly 
not every geographic form or feature mentioned in 
the prescribed course is within the reach of the stu- 
dent, but the judicious use of pictures, photographs, 
and models, all of which are now available, will give 
a very clear idea of the actual feature. It is well 
to keep in mind that the modern photograph or half- 
tone may be used as something more than a picture to 
admire ; it may be made a very effective laboratory study. 



210 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

The third and most important aspect of the teacher's 
preparation involves the interrelation of the customs, 
employments, and political institutions of a people with 
their geographic environment. This information is not 
always easy to obtain, and for the greater part it must 
be acquired by reading. Unfortunately there is no 
treatise on the subject available for the purpose of 
technical study, and the material that is useful must 
be sought here and there in chapters and volumes, 
the greater part of which have no specific bearing on 
geography. For this reason it is almost impossible 
to arrange a good course of reading on the subject 
of economic geography, and the student who is not 
within reach of a good library, to a great extent is 
shut off from such a course. Granted that the charge 
of very poor geography teaching which has been 
made against the teachers of the United States is 
true, there is good cause for such a condition. There 
are more than half a million teachers in the country, 
nearly all of whom are required to have some knowl- 
edge of the subject, and to fit this number there are 
special courses in two or three universities and about 
a dozen normal schools. A considerable help should 
be expected of the army of normal schools, but un- 
fortunately many of them are too completely wedded 
to the flesh-pots of method to accomplish what is 
most needed ; namely, some good academic work in 
the general principles of geography. 



THE TEACHER'S PREPARATION 211 
PHYSIOGRAPHIC GEOGRAPHY 

To the student who has undertaken the requisite 
field and laboratory work the following supplementary 
reading or its equivalent is recommended. It is not 
necessary to purchase an extensive list of books, but 
one or two manuals and at least one comprehensive 
reference book is necessary. It is essential that the 
student shall possess a general knowledge of the funda- 
mental principles of physical geography, and for this 
purpose either one of the three recent text-books on 
the subject may be used profitably ; namely, Tarr's 
{Macmilla7t Company), Davis's {Ginn & Company), or 
Redway's {Charles Scribfters Sons). These texts differ 
from the earlier publications in containing the physio- 
graphic aspect of geography ; that is, in addition to 
the description of a physical feature its origin, evolu- 
tion, and destruction are set forth. The text used may 
be supplemented by Mill's "Realm of Nature" {Charles 
Scribners Sons) or by Geikie's " Physical Geography " 
{Macmillan Company). 

Among the older text-books there are noteworthy 
chapters with which it is well to be familiar. In Apple- 
ton's *' Physical Geography " {American Book Company) 
the chapter entitled " Mineral Products and their 
Distribution," p. 114 et seq., is one of the best to be 
found in any educational publication. 

The succeeding chapter, " Physical Features of the 



212 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

United States (Gannett, U. S. Geol. Survey), is also 
worth a close study. Chapter XVII, Monteith's " New 
Physical Geography " {American Book Company), con- 
tains a very elementary, but a most excellent, study of 
cyclonic storms. Its chief merit is its simplicity and 
clearness. Maury's " Physical Geography " {University 
Publishing Company'), p. 6i, contains a very full text 
on ocean currents and their distribution. In Warren's 
*' New Physical Geography " {Butler-Sheldon Company), 
pp. 100-116, is an exceedingly instructive chapter on 
the distribution of life. In Redway's " Manual " {D. C 
Heath & Company), Chapters VII, VIII, and IX, will 
be found a discussion on ordinary misconceptions of 
geographic forms. 

All the foregoing, however, are elementary, and 
their value is mainly from the pedagogical standpoint. 
For professional training one of the best as well as 
the most practical of treatises is Le Conte's " Elements 
of Geology " {D. Apple ton & Company). Part I is a 
very thorough treatise on physiographic geography 
(containing nothing on meteorology). Part II is a 
technical consideration of rock structure. It would 
better tfe preceded by a more elementary work like 
that in Shaler's First " Book in Geology " {D. C Heath 
& Company), pp. 233-252, or Tarr's "Economic Geol- 
ogy," pp. 33-103. Part III treats of historic and strati- 
graphic geology. The whole book is written in most 
interesting and charming style ; it is very broad in 



THE TEACHER'S PREPARATION 21 3 

treatment and of great educational value. It is more 
useful as a book for systematic study than the more 
comprehensive treatises of Dana {American Book Com- 
pany) or Geikie {Macmillan Company), but it cannot 
replace these as reference books. 

Dana's "Geology" (4th edition) is an exhaustive trea- 
tise, and is strictly technical in character. The parts 
embraced in pp. 89-396 and pp. 932-1036 will be 
found worthy of repeated study. Geikie's " Geology " 
(3d edition) is similar in scope to the foregoing, and 
although an English publication, is very full in all 
matters pertaining to the geology and physiographic 
features of the United States. Books I-IV cover 
about the same subjects as the first four hundred 
pages of Dana. A comparative study of the two is 
suggested. Book VII is a highly instructive resum^ 
of the general principles of physiographic geography. 
The illustration page 1084 will be found a most enter- 
taining object lesson. The indices of these two books 
are a great convenience to any reader; there is hardly 
a name connected with the science of geology that 
cannot be found in either one. 

The publications of the United States Geological Sur- 
vey contain a vast storehouse of practical information, 
both as to principles, and also their application. Pow- 
ell's " Exploration of the Colorado River of the West " 
{U. S. Geol. Survey^ 1875) has, in addition to the nar- 
rative of exploration, a treatise on the morphology of 



214 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

montane valleys (Chapters XI-XII) that is a standard 
at the present time. Gilbert's " Lake Bonneville " 
{U. S. Geol. Survey, Mon. I), Chapter II, contains 
about the best treatise on the morphology and topog- 
raphy of shore lines that is available to students. This 
monograph contains a discussion on the deformation 
of the earth's surface resulting from the desiccation 
of Lake Bonneville. The monograph should be studied 
as a whole, however, rather than as a series of essays. 
Gulliver's "Shoreline Topography" {^Am. Journal of 
Science, Jan. 1899) is also a very helpful essay on coast 
morphology. Russell's "Lake Lahontan" (f/. S. Geol. 
Survey, Mon. XI) and his " Lakes of North America " 
{Ginn & Company) constitute a most excellent treatise 
on the origin and life history of lakes. " Physiography 
of the United States " (American Book Company) con- 
sists of a series of monographs prepared by members of 
the United States Geological Survey, especially for the 
teachers of the United States. Every chapter in the 
book ought to be familiar to the teacher of geography. 

The maps published by the Geological Survey are 
the best extant. They are highly conventionalized, 
and therefore enable one to read and interpret the 
physical geography of the region.^ 

It is necessary to have at least a theoretical ac- 
quaintance with the various methods of constructing 
and projecting maps ; for this purpose the teacher is 

^ For information concerning these, see Chapter IX. 



THE TEACHER'S PREPARATION 21 5 

referred to Elderton's " Map Drawing " {Macmillan 
Company) or to Redvvay's " Reproduction of Geographic 
Forms " (D. C. Heath & Company). 

ROCKS AND MINERALS 

Rocks and minerals must be studied objectively, 
and the teacher must expect to provide himself with 
at least a few specimens. To become familiar with 
the minerals noted in Chapter XI is essential. In 
addition it is advisable to procure the following, which 
are mainly of the class of igneous rocks : rhyolite, 
trachyte, porphyry, felsite, granites (various specimens 
that will show one or more of mica, feldspar, quartz, 
hornblende, garnet, and tourmaline), gabbros (including 
specimens showing olivine and augite), andesite, dia- 
base, asbestos, and labradorite. One may learn to 
determine these fairly well by their external appear- 
ance, and this knowledge is about all that will ever be 
required of the grade teacher. 

The following minerals, some of which are listed 
in Chapter XI, should also be studied until their 
physical characteristics are familiar : talc, hornblende, 
pyrites (both iron and copper), graphite, gypsum, 
garnet, the various carbonates of lime, the various 
feldspars, and the various forms of quartz (chalcedony, 
amethyst, carnelian, agate, etc.), and such others as 
may occur in the neighborhood. 

With reference to sedimentary rocks, it is essential 



2i6 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

that one must be familiar with the general classes, 
such as sandstone, conglomerate, shale (and slate), clay, 
and also such forms as alluvium, silt, loess, till, etc. 
A good description of these occurs in Dana's " Geol- 
ogy " (4th edition, pp. 80-81); they must be familiar- 
ized, however, not by reading, but by observation. In 
general, the best line of study and investigation will 
be afforded. For the preparation in geography, blow- 
pipe and chemical determinations are not essential, 
but they are to be recommended. Specimens that 
cannot be readily determined should be sent to the 
nearest available authority — the geological department 
of the state university or the United States Geological 
Survey. This applies especially to the rocks and min- 
erals of the neighborhood, 

METEOROLOGY AND WEATHER STUDY 

In addition to the chapters on this subject pre- 
sented in the text-books of physical geography, a 
considerable laboratory work and technical study are 
necessary. The laboratory work should consist of 
the manipulation and use of the thermometer, barom- 
eter, and rain gauge ; the observational study of 
clouds, winds, and storm movements, etc ; and also 
the study of weather maps and the making of fore- 
casts. 

In the matter of theoretical study there is a choice 
between two excellent manuals, Waldo's "Meteorology" 



THE TEACHER'S PREPARATION 21/ 

(American Book Company) and the more advanced 
Davis's "Meteorology" {Ginn & Coiupauy.) Ward's 
"Exercises in Meteorology" {Ginn & Company) is 
the most helpful manual yet published on weather 
forecasts. For the general study of weather con- 
ditions in the United States, Greely's " American 
Weather" {Dodd, Mead & Company) is not only a 
comprehensive monogram on the subject, but a very 
interesting book as well. One must bear in mind 
that though a certain amount of reading is necessary, 
the knowledge that gives strength must come from 
observational work. Certainly no side of geography 
is more practical than this. 

For definite instructions in making the usual weather 
observations it will be better to consult the instruc- 
tions issued officially to the forecasters of the United 
States Weather Bureau. In carrying on systematic 
observations a thermometer, a barometer, and a rain 
gauge are indispensable, and a serviceable set may be 
procured for six dollars.^ For the technical study of 
weather forecasting one cannot do better than to pro- 
cure the National Geographic Magazine, Vol. VIII, 
No. 3. Twenty-five full-page maps are employed to 
illustrate the subject, and these cover about every 
weather condition. 

1 This is the minimum ; it would be better to have a maximum and a 
minimum thermometer, which will bring the cost to about eight dollars. 
A hygrometer is convenient but not essential. 



2l8 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

POLITICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE GEOGRAPHY 

Extensive travel falls to the lot of but few people, 
and for the greater part one's knowledge of the 
world must be obtained by reading. There are so 
many books of travel that an analysis of any of them 
would be impracticable. One class, however, should 
be avoided ; namely, those written by the enterpris- 
ing globe-trotter who spends three weeks in Asia, two 
in Africa, and one in South America, and then pub- 
lishes his "impressions" in ten volumes. There are 
a few tourist books, however, that have a decided 
value from an educative standpoint, such, for instance, 
as Knox's " Boy Travellers " and Abbott's " Rollo 
Books" — long since having a very definite place 
among the books of juvenile literature. For the 
teacher, reading of a different character is required, 
and it must be authoritative. 

The various cyclopaedias to which many have access 
contain a vast amount of information, but inasmuch 
as the statistics of geography are constantly changing, 
too much confidence should not be placed upon them 
in this respect. For statistical geography no other 
publications can compare with "The Statesman's Year 
Book " {Macmillan Company) and the " Almanach de 
Gotha." The latter is published in German and 
French; the former, a volume of about 1200 pages, 
is a statistical geography of the world, and is invalu- 



THE TEACHER'S PREPARATION 219 

able for purposes of reference. Under ordinary cir- 
cumstances it is sufficiently accurate after a lapse of 
two or three years, 

Stanford's "Compendium of Geography" {Stanford^ 
is a comprehensive publication in six parts of eleven 
volumes. The text is diffuse in style, and both in- 
teresting and accurate. Keith Johnston's " London 
Geography " {Stanford^ is an excellent, comprehensive 
treatise leaning somewhat toward the historical side 
of the subject. One of the very best works that 
has yet appeared is "The International Geography" 
{p. Appleton & Company) ; it is the work of about 
seventy specialists, edited by Hugh Robert Mill, for- 
merly Librarian of the Royal Geographical Society. 
The contents, arrangement, and style all make the 
book highly adaptable to the teacher, not only as a 
preparation for the work of geography teaching, but 
in class-room work as well. 

Much valuable material may be obtained from such 
publications as the Scientific Americany the Sunday 
supplements of the New York Sun} the Literary 
Digest, the magazines, and similar publications. Clip- 
pings from newspapers should be arranged topically 
in one or more scrap-books ; magazine articles may 

^ The Sunday edition of the Sun in one year contains about as much 
good geographic reading as the best of the professional pubUcations 
devoted to the subject, and, as a rule, the articles are infinitely more 
readable. 



220 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

be stitched and bound in volumes of convenient size. 
Literature of this kind, if selected with a view to 
future reference, constantly grows in value. 

The National Geographic Magazitie {McClnre, Phil- 
lips 6f Compajiy), the official organ of the National 
Geographic Society, contains a great deal of informa- 
tion for the geography teacher. The articles are from 
specialists, and many of them are written directly to 
teachers and pupils. The Scottish Geographical Maga- 
zine has also much that is useful to both teachers 
and students of geography. In addition to the fore- 
going are two geographical publications intended es- 
pecially for the preparation of teachers. The Journal 
of School Geography is conducted by Professor R. E. 
Dodge, Teachers College, New York City. Its litera- 
ture is practical and scholarly. The Bulletin of the 
American Bureau of Geography, the official organ of 
the Bureau, contains considerable matter in the way 
of descriptive geography. The Bureau is conducted 
by Mr. Edward Lehnerts, formerly Professor of Geog- 
raphy in the State Normal School at Winona. Its 
object is a very practical and admirable one; namely, 
the supply and exchange of lantern slides, photo- 
graphs, and all sorts of material required by the 
geography teacher. 

The supplemental reading intended primarily for 
pupils will be of material aid also to the teacher. 
Miss Smith's " World and its People " {^Silver, Bur- 



THE TEACHER'S PREPARATION 211 

dett &• Compmiy), Mr. Rupert's Reader {Shewell), and 
Mr. Carpenter's well-known books {American Book 
Company), present a side of life in foreign lands that 
is rarely to be found in the more pretentious books 
of travel, and Mr. Vincent's "Actual Africa" {D. Apple- 
ton & Company) will furnish excellent reading concern- 
ing that continent. 

ECONOMIC AND HISTORIC GEOGRAPHY 

Whatever knowledge is obtained along the lines of 
economic or "commercial" geography must be acquired 
mainly by reading, and for the latter one must be 
willing to spend a great deal of time in order to 
obtain a very little in the way of return. There are 
a few books that treat of the geography of com- 
mercial products, such as Chisholm's {Longmans, Green 
& Company), the elementary manual of Mr. H. R. Mill 
(for grammar schools), and that of Mr. E. C. K. Conner 
{Macmillan Company). These are books that deserve 
a place in the library of every teacher. For the study 
of the interrelation of geography, history, and com- 
merce, perhaps the most practical treatise yet pub- 
lished is Mr. John Fiske's "Discovery of America" 
{Houghton, Mifflin & Company). Although intended 
as a historical work, the geographer and the political 
economist will each find it a most useful handbook 
for reference. It reads like a romance, and in its 
line it is unquestionably the most important historical 



222 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

production of the nineteenth century. Chapters II 
and IV of this book touch briefly on this aspect of 
geography. Shaler's " Nature and Man in North 
America" {CJiarles Scribner's Sons) is helpful and 
suggestive along this line, and so also is Trotter's 
" Lessons in the New Geography " {D. C. Heath & 
Company), a special feature of which is the effect 
of climate and topography on the distribution of man- 
kind. 

The student of geography cannot do better than 
to take each geographic feature or agent, such as 
mountains, valleys, plateaus, passes, plains, rivers, 
glaciers, winds, ocean currents, and discover its effects 
or influence on history, economic relations, and social 
life. Conversely it will be well to study each great 
physical region in order to learn why and in what 
manner its industrial and social features are what they 
are. Much is said about the correlation of geography 
and history nowadays, and, indeed, one might as well 
endeavor to divorce water and the quality of wetness 
as to separate these two studies one from the other. 
Each, however, has a distinct aspect ; the one is cause, 
the other is effect. 

A certain amount of local work may be taken up also. 
Every neighborhood or region has its own industries, 
and they are there in all probability for one or more 
of the following reasons : suitable topography, suitable 
climate, the local production of a material that is not 



THE TEACHER'S PREPARATION 223 

produced elsewhere, easy and cheap transportation, and 
the concentration of labor skilled in that particular 
pursuit. 

Unfortunately no handbook on the correlation of 
geography, history, and economics has yet appeared, 
in which these principles are applied definitely to the 
United States. The student must therefore grope 
about and do a great deal of desultory reading in order 
to obtain a very little information. One must bear in 
mind, however, that this aspect of geography is its 
most important feature. Knowledge in the abstract is 
certainly educative, but the ability to apply knowledge 
is wisdom ; and the full perception of the various 
ways in which geographic environment influences our 
lives and activities is the foundation of statesman- 
ship. 

The list at the end of this chapter is not intended to 
be comprehensive, and many books of the highest class 
are omitted. Those named, for the greater part, will 
be found in the lists of the various Reading Circles ; 
others may be obtained in most of the public libraries. 
It is not even suggested that any great number be pur- 
chased. As a matter of fact, the number of books 
actually required, in connection with the field and 
laboratory work, is surprisingly small. If the teacher is 
the right sort of stuff, the following list will prove an 
equipment that mastered will put one in the foremost 
rank of geography teachers. 



224 THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

Any modern text-book of physical geography $1.25 

Le Conte's •' Elements of Geology " 4.00 

Waldo's or Davis's "Meteorology," 90^ or 2.50 

Fiske's '• Discovery of America " 4.00 

Ward's Exercises in Meteorology 1.25 

" International Geography " 3.50 

Elderton's or Redway's "Map Drawing" .30 

$76780 

To this may be added any good reference atlas, and 
as these range from ^i to ^30 there is a wide choice. 
A good reference atlas should have a complete index 
of names, in order to be of practical use. Moreover, 
one must supplement even the most complete atlas 
with maps of the "unexpected," that is, with those 
changes that result from discovery, from disturbed 
political conditions, and from causes that cannot be 
foreseen. Information of this character, accompanied 
by sketch maps, is always to be found in the better 
class of newspapers and magazines, and a scrap-book 
of such maps should be kept with the atlas. 

That the teaching of geography should be placed 
on a materially higher plane is no longer a question 
for discussion : it is one to which public sentiment has 
already returned a decisive answer. Moreover, the 
army of teachers are beginning to realize that, for the 
greater part, they must train themselves, and they are 
already setting about the accomplishment of the self- 
imposed task. As Professor Geikie says : " So vast is 
the field of inquiry and so vague the boundaries of the 



THE TEACHER'S PREPARATION 22 5 

subject, one can hardly discover where to begin, or 
having begun, choose out of the overwhelming multi- 
plicity of detail the parts which are really of service 
for geographical purposes." 

In the preceding paragraphs of this chapter, the 
author has endeavored to clear a way through the vast 
field of somewhat uncertain boundaries. The thoughts 
offered are suggestions rather than minute directions ; 
to follow them slavishly, therefore, will not be advis- 
able. The individuality of a strong teacher counts 
quite as much as scholarship, and the student of these 
chapters should not hesitate to go to the right or the 
left as judgment dictates. To the great army of rural 
and grade teachers, one of whom the author has been, 
these chapters are addressed by a fellowcraftsman, and 
if they stimulate to better work in the future, then 
their purpose will have been fulfilled. 



BOOKS OF REFERENCE PERTAINING 
TO GEOGRAPHY 

METHOD 

Geikie. The Teaching of Geography. Macmillan Co. $0.65. ^ 

Farnham. Oswego Methods in Geography. Bardeen. 

Frye. Child and Nature. Ginn & Co. $0.75. 

Jackman. Field Work and Nature Study. Flanagan. 

King. Methods and Aids in Geography. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 

$1.15- 

Parker. How to Study Geography. D. Appleton & Co. $1.10 
and $0.15. 

Mill. Choice of Books for Reference. Longmans, Green & Co. 
$0.94. 

McMurry. Special Method in Geography. Public School Publish- 
ing Company. 

Redway. Teacher's Manual of Geography. D. C. Heath & Co. 
$0.50. 

Redway. Reproduction of Geographic Forms (Map Drawing and 
Modelling). D. C. Heath & Co. $0.30. 

Nichols. Topics in Geography. D. C. Heath & Co. $0.60. 

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY, METEOROLOGY, GEOLOGY 

Le Conte. Elements of Geology. D. Appleton & Co. $4.00. 
Geikie. Text-Book of Geology. Macmillan Co. $7.50. 
Dana. Manual of Geology. American Book Co. 
Waldo. Elementary Meteorology. American Book Co. $0.90. 
Davis. Elementary Meteorology. Ginn & Co. $2.30. 
Ward. Exercises in Practical Meteorology. Ginn & Co. 

1 The prices given are taken from catalogues of 1900-01. In some instances 
cheaper editions may be procured. Postage may be reckoned at about fifteen 
cents on the dollar. 

227 



228 BOOKS OF REFERENCE 

Trotter. Lessons in the New Geography. D. C. Heath & Co. 

$o.go. 
Shaler. Aspects of the Earth. Chas. Scribner's Sons. $1.75. 
Shaler. Sea and Land. Chas. Scribner's Sons. $1.75. 
Shaler. Nature and Man in North America. Chas. Scribner's 

Sons. $1.05. 
MilL The Realm of Nature. Chas. Scribner's Sons. $1.15. 
Roberts. The Earth's History. Chas. Scribner's Sons. $1.15. 
Physiography of the United States (ten monographs). American 

Book Co. $2.50. 
Russell. Lakes of North America. Ginn & Co. $1.40. 
Russell. Glaciers of North America. Ginn & Co. $1.65. 
Russell. Volcanoes of North America. Ginn & Co. $3.00. 
Wallace. Island Life. Macmillan Co. $1.30. 
Wallace. Geographical Distribution of Animals. Harper Brothers. 

$7.00. 
Tyndall. Forms of Water. D. Appleton & Co. 
Green. (Catalogue.) Manufacturer of Weather Instruments for 

United States Weather Bureau. 1191 Bedford Ave.; Brooklyn, 

N. Y. 

DESCRIPTIVE AND POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY 

Keltic. Statesman's Year Book. Macmillan Co. $3.00. 
Johnston. Geograph}-, Descriptive, Ph3'sical, and Historical. Stan- 
ford. $3.00. 
Mill. International Geography. D. Appleton & Co. $3.00. 
Stanford's Compendium of Travel — 

Rudler and Chisholm. Europe. (2 vols.) $7.65. 

Keane. Asia. (2 vols.) $7.65. 

Keith Johnston. Africa. (2 vols.) $7.65. 

Hayden and Selwyn. North America. $3.85. 

Bates. South America, Central America, and West Indies. 

Wallace. Australia. (2 vols.) $7.15. 
Vincent. Actual Africa. D. Appleton & Co. $3.00. 
Marco Polo's Travels. (Translated by Marsden.) Macmillan Co. 

$1.50. 
Century Atlas. Century Publishing Co. 



BOOKS OF REFERENCE 229 

HISTORIC, ECONOMIC, AND COMMERCIAL 

Gonner. Commercial Geography. Macmillan Co. $0.55. 

Mill. Commercial Geography. Macmillan Co. 

Chisholm. Handbook of Commercial Geography. Longmans, 

Green & Co. $3.00. 
Fiske. Discovery of America. (2 vols.) Houghton, Mifflin & 

Co. $4.00. 
Shaler. Nature and Man in North America. Chas. Scribner's 

Sons. 
Trotter. Lessons from the New Geography. D. C. Heath & Co. 

$0.90. 



THE TEACHERS' PROFESSIONAL LIBRARY 

Under the General Editorship of Nicholas Hurray Butler, Professor of Philosophy 
and Education in Columbia University. 

The contributors to this series will be leading teachers and students of education in 
Europe as well as in the United States. Each volume applies the results of the latest 
scholarship and the widest experience to some phase of educational thought or activity. 
Each subject is treated in untechnical language, and the series is intended lo form a prac- 
tical reference library of text-books in professional study, the price of which is within 
every one's reach. 



THE TEACHINQ OF ELEMENTARY MATHEMATICS 

By David Eugene Smith, Principal of the State Normal School at Brockport, N.Y. 
Cloth, i2mo. $i.oo net. {Now Ready.) 

CONTENTS 
Chapter I. Chapter VIII. 

Historical Reasons for Teaching Arith- Typical Parts of Algebra, 

metic. 



Chapter II. 
Why Arithmetic is Taught at Present. 



Chapter IX. 
Growth of Geometry. 

Chapter X. 



TT A -.u .• T. 1-^ 1 J What is Geometry ? General Suggestions 

How Arithmetic has Developed. for Teachers 



Chapter IV. 

How Arithmetic has been Taught. 

Chapter V. 

The Present Teaching of Arithmetic. 

Chapter VI. 

The Growth of Algebra. _ Chapter XIII 

Chapter VII. 



for Teachers. 

Chapter XI. 
The Bases of Geometry. 

Chapter XII. 
Typical Parts of Geometry. 



The Teacher's Book-shelf. 



Algebra — What and Why Taught. Index. 

" This book will be particularly interesting to progressive teachers, for they will find 
much in it that will be helpful to them, especially in guiding them to higher levels. I 
wish to strongly recommend it to all teachers of elementary mathematics, for it cannot 
fail to create new interests and desires for better things. It gives a r^sum^ of many of the 
best authorities on the teaching of arithmetic, algebra, and geometry, including an account 
of their origin and development." — Professor W. H. Metzler, Syracuse University, in 
" Journal of Pedagogy." 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 

I 



THE TEACHERS' PROFESSIONAL LIBRARY 

5CH00L HYGIENE 

By Edward R. Shaw, Ph.D., Dean of the Faculty of Pedagogy in the New York 
University. Cloth, izmo. {Ready shortly.) 

This volume will mark a departure from the conventional treatment of the subject of 
school hygiene. The schoolroom is viewed as the unit first to be considered in the plan- 
ning of a school building. Accordingly, the building is regarded as the grouping of the 
number of schoolrooms required, with corridors, cloak-rooms, etc., and not as a building 
of a given size determined by the appropriation, and then divided up into schoolrooms, 
corridors, etc. The book is not one of open questions on school hygiene, but offers some 
definite conclusions. Much new material on the subject is presented. The chapters are: 
The Schoolroom, The School Building, School Grounds, Warming and Ventilation, School 
Baths, School Furniture, Postures and Physical Exercise, Eyesight and Hearing, The 
Hygiene of Handwriting, Fatigue, Sanitation, and Diseases which concern the School. 

THE NEW BASIS OF GEOGRAPHY 

By Jacques W. Redway, F.R.Q.S. Cloth, i2mo. {Ready shortly.) 

This volume is designed to point out the salient features that constitute the " new " of 
geography. After presenting the gradual development of human knowledge concerning 
the form and size of the earth, the author shows the marvellous results of discover^' that 
followed the blockading of the trade routes between Europe and Cathay, — the discovery 
of the New World, the finding of an all-water route to India, the decline of the commercial 
power of Genoa and Venice, and the battle between the factory and the feudal system that 
established the centres of commerce in western Europe and in the New World. 

Throughout the book Mr. Redway intimately analyzes the close relation between topog- 
raphy and climate on the one hand, and the activities of human life on the other. 

THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH 

By Perclval Chubb, M.A., of the Ethical Culture School, New York City. Cloth, 
i2mo. {In preparaiioTi.) 

This book expresses the conviction that if we are to make good the serious shortcom- 
ings of our school training in English, it must be by more effective work, not alone or 
chiefly in the high school, but throughout the elementary school course. This book, there- 
fore, devotes special attention to the work of the elementary school. It sketches a unified, 
progressive, rich, and well-articulated course, covering the whole period from the kinder- 
garten through the high school, and deals with the difficulties and problems which meet 
the teacher in developing the student's twin powers of appreciation and expression. The 
treatment is practical, and the recommendations are the outcome of the writer's efforts and 
experiences in the class-room. It lays stress upon the fundamental need of a better liter- 
ary equipment of the teacher, and the consistent application of literary principles and 
standards in school work. Unless our teachers, the author insists, speak and read and 
write well, and by their exemplary influences win their pupils to good habits of thought, 
feeling, and language, and to worthy preferences and pleasures, no great advance can be 
! loked for. The book aims to invest school work in English with the literaiy quality and 
attractiveness that must belong to it, if it is to be the most powerful school agency for tho 
refinement of manners, the enrichment of intercourse, and the ennobling of character. 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

ee FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 
2 



^6^ 



^'^7 



